Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance
by Slavok
Summary: San always hated humans, and that was before one summoned her as a glamorized pet. Good luck with that, Louise. You'll need it.
1. Chapter 1

Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance

Chapter One

In the beginning, God created the animals, both mundane and magical. Eagles and wolves covered the land beneath dragons and basilisks, and it was good. Then God created humans, both magical and mundane. Farmers and fishermen worked the land and sea, and mages and sorcerers ruled over them, and it was good.

But if she couldn't use magic, how could Louise call herself a mage? What did her family name and noble heritage mean when every spell she cast blew up in her face?

The rest of her class called her a Zero, and all Louise could do was make grandiose promises about how _next time_ she'd do something amazing, _eventually_ she'd live up to the Valliere name.

Well, it _was_ next time, the last time, her last chance. She stood alone on the well-kept lawn on that bright spring day. The rest of her class watched from a distance, not wanting to miss the show, nor wanting to get caught up in the disaster.

 _If the rest of my life is a disaster, please, Brimir, let me succeed. Just this once._

"By the Pentagon of the Five Powers..."

WWW

The gods were dead. The humans had won. The power of the forest was broken, and nothing could stop the flood of mankind from washing over the land and draining it of everything it had like the Night Walker's own blood.

Ashitaka still believed in them. San couldn't understand how he could have spent his whole life among humans and still know them so little.

And yet, the humans didn't advance. They rebuilt their town, lit up their forges, and stayed there as the forest regrew. _See with eyes unclouded by hate._ Ashitaka always said that, but with the boar gods dead, the deer god dead, her _mother_ dead, sometimes hate was all she could see.

She was, after all, Princess Mononoke. That was what the humans called her, Princess of the Vengeful Spirits. The humans of Iron Town whispered that her soul had been stolen by the wolf gods. That almost made her laugh. It was, after all, the humans who stole souls. It was the _humans_ who poisoned the ancient spirits and turned them into demons.

Ashitaka believed that love was stronger than hatred. That was why he was in Iron Town, repairing their walls and their hearts while San...San hunted.

That was why on the middle of an island in the middle of the lake in the middle of the forest where the Forest Spirit once became the Night Walker, San saw a light open up before her.

WWW

The field exploded. That happened sometimes. Louise's classmates laughed. That happened too.

But when the smoke cleared, Louise saw a figure that wasn't there before. Her heart jumped. Her familiar? It was white and furry. A dog? It wasn't the dragon she hoped for, but still, getting anything at all was wonderful! She'd walk it every day and...and...

A pair of human feet stuck out from under the fur. _What?_ She hurried over to it. Under closer inspection, the creature she summoned looked like a person in a fur cloak. _What?_ She rolled her familiar over with her foot. Yep, a human, a girl about Louise's age in commoner rags, a purple dress under a white vest, both of which had seen better days. And she was wearing...teeth, a necklace full of them, and a red, clay mask over the top half of her face. _WHAT?_

"Is that a commoner?" her classmate, Montmorency said. Louise grimaced. At that point, she was worried that she had summoned a complete savage.

"It's a commoner!" Kirche laughed. "That's hilarious!"

Louise, as usual, didn't appreciate Kirche's sense of humor. "Professor Colbert, can I try again? I can't..."

Her familiar's eyes flashed open, and in an instant her feet were under her with a knife in her hand. Louise screamed as her familiar lashed out at her right before Colbert hit the commoner with a spell.

"Miss Valliere, I am so sorry," he said. "I didn't think...you're bleeding!"

Louise tried to calm down, and realized that her cheek was bleeding with a cut on the left side. If her familiar had aimed just an inch higher, she could have lost an eye. Under any other circumstances, if a commoner had attacked a noble without provocation, that commoner would have gotten a death sentence. Louise wiped away the blood from her cheek and felt dizzy seeing it smeared on her hand. She swallowed.

"I'm fine. I...I don't suppose I could try to summon something else?"

Colbert smiled weakly and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss Valliere, but rules are rules. I have never heard of a human familiar, but whatever you summon, you must make your familiar."

Louise looked at her familiar. Wherever she had come from, she was high spirited. And thoroughly vexed. Colbert's spell had restrained her–it was a midlevel air spell to prevent the familiars from attacking their masters before the ritual was completed, and Louise's familiar looked like she wanted to stab, well, everyone. Neither of those attributes were what Louise would consider ideal in a servant, but she didn't have a choice in the matter.

She approached her familiar, who snarled at her. Elegant. "Commoner, do you have a name?" she asked, trying to sound polite. And so what if she didn't? The girl _did_ try to kill her.

" _Let–me–go!_ " Her voice came out as a snarl.

Louise shook her head. Out of all the creatures she could have summoned, she had to summon a commoner, and out of all the commoners she could have summoned, she had to summon a wild one. But again, she didn't have a choice. She put her hands on the girl's shoulders, stood up on her toes, and jumped back as the commoner snapped at her, trying to bite her nose off.

 _If I had wanted to lose my face, I would have summoned a fire elemental._ "Professor Colbert?"

"Of course." He waved his staff, and the invisible ropes of air that bound the rest of her familiar kept her mouth closed too. Despite everything, Louise felt a speck of pride in that. Not even Kirche's Salamander had put up as much of a fight.

"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Valliere," she said. "Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers, bless this humble being and make her my familiar." The humble being growled at her, and before she could start foaming at the mouth, Louise kissed her.

Louise smiled. "You may release her, Professor Colbert," she said confidently. "The Familiar Contract is completed; she won't harm me."

Her teacher hesitated, but only for a moment. After all, who had ever heard of a familiar attacking her master? As soon as she was free, the girl stepped back, her face still angry, her knife still in her hand, and Louise remembered that no one had ever heard of a mage summoning a human, either.

But Louise couldn't back down, she couldn't show fear, no weakness, she...

Her familiar screamed. She screamed and dropped her knife, clutching her right hand at the wrist as runes formed there. In a mad panic, she grabbed the knife in her left hand and was about to stab herself in the right when Colbert stopped her.

"Go to sleep!" he said, waving his staff, and her familiar fell to the ground. Colbert smiled weakly. "Well, that was a lot more excitement than I was hoping for. Will you need any more help with her?"

Louise blushed and shook her head. Her familiar would have been a lot more impressive if she had managed to remain standing at the end of the ritual, and the last thing Louise's reputation needed was for the teacher to hold her hand throughout the entire ordeal. "No, Professor Colbert, thank you. I can handle the rest."

"Alright then. In that case, the Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual is finished. Class dismissed."

Her classmates wondered off, some walking, others levitating, depending on where they were headed. She caught a few of them gesturing towards her and snickering, but that was to be expected. She looked down at her familiar, asleep on the grass.

"This is all your fault, you know," she said. "You just couldn't have been a dragon, could you?" A dragon probably would have eaten her from the start, but at least it would have been impressive. She waved down a couple of servants. "You two. Come with me. I need you to carry that girl to my room."

If the maids didn't know why Louise didn't levitate her familiar to her room, they didn't ask, and if they knew that she couldn't, they knew better than to bring it up. When they picked up the girl, a spear fell out of her cloak.

"Should we bring her things too, Miss?" one of the maids asked.

Louise studied the spear and the knife. She was no weapons expert, but she had assumed that they were made out of some sort of metal. Under closer inspection, though, it looked like both the spearhead and the knife were made out of a matching pair of teeth. They weren't manticore teeth, fortunately. Her mother's familiar was too well trained to bite her, but she had seen the effects of manticore poison before and it wasn't pretty. They might have been from a dragon; they were big enough, but the shape wasn't quite right.

"No, leave them," she said finally. Familiar Contract or not, she wasn't going to let the girl sleep in her room _and_ walk around with sharp objects. She'd have to earn that trust. And maybe Louise was feeling a bit petty, but so what? She rubbed the scratch on her cheek, hoping that it wouldn't leave a scar.

WWW

San awoke to the smell of straw. She opened her eyes and found herself in a stone room. Not a cave, but something manmade. She stood up quickly and looked around. There were stone walls made out of stone blocks and too many right angles, and a floor and ceiling made out of wooden planks. The room was filled with wooden structures that she didn't recognize that were polished to a shine and one door and two windows. And one human.

The human had long pink hair, short stature, and clothes San didn't recognize. She smelled like flowers. No, that was inadequate. She smelled more like flowers than flowers did. She smelled as though she had taken a field of them, crushed them into a fine paste, and then rubbed it all over her skin. In such an enclosed space, the smell was overpowering. "So, you're finally awake," the human said.

She pulled her mask up from over her face to on top of her head. "Where am I?"

"You are in the Tristain Academy of Magic. I imagine that your arrival must have come as a bit of a shock, so I'll overlook your past actions. This time." Her voice carried a threat, even though the human was smaller than her and alone. But then again, earlier, San had been bound by cords she couldn't see or break out of, not that she had never backed down from a threat before.

San looked at the mark on her right hand. When her body began to burn and the mark began to form, she had panicked, and thought that she was being infected by the same curse that had turned so many of the gods into demons and had nearly killed Ashitaka. Such things happened when you spent too much time around humans. But while the curse was black and purple, the mark on her hand had only a slightly different color from her skin.

"How did I get here?" She had been in the forest, then she had woken up on the grass, and then she had woken up in a human...place.

"I summoned you as part of the Springtime Familiar Summoning Ritual. You are my familiar and I am your master. Not an ideal situation, I know, but it seems to be the will of the Founder in his own, confusing way, and we'll just have to deal with it."

That...that told her nothing. San decided to leave this human place, and maybe find a pack of wolves she could talk to. She studied the door. She had never used one before, but she had seen them used.

She pushed the door. Nothing happened. She tried to slide it. If she remembered correctly, it was supposed to slide into the wall, but this door didn't. She grabbed the metal ball half way up the thing and pulled, but the door didn't budge.

"What are you doing?" the human demanded, but San ignored her. If the human was going to answer her questions with nonsense, then she'd answer hers with silence.

She reached for her knife to stab the stupid door if only out of frustration, but it wasn't there. Neither was her spear. "Where's my knife?"

"I don't know what you did before this, but you're my familiar now. You don't need a knife, especially if you're not responsible enough to know better than to stab everything you see."

In a surge of anger, San slammed her shoulder into the little human and nearly knocked her out the window before grabbing her by the strange fabric she wore. "Where is it?" she demanded.

"What are you doing? You're stretching my shirt!"

San shoved her to the side and climbed out the window. Any answer the human would have given her probably wouldn't have made any sense anyway.

"That is no way to treat a noble, your master least of all! Honestly, were you raised by wolves?"

"I am a wolf," she replied. She must have dropped her father's teeth when she collapsed on the grass, but it looked like a forty foot drop. She might be able to climb down, but it would be tricky.

"Great, so you're delusional as well as uncouth. I certainly hit the familiar jackpot. And yes, that is the ledge of a fourth story window you're standing one, so unless you can fly, you might want to step back a bit.

Looking up at the night sky, San saw something that nearly made her lose her footing. The moon had split in two, a small red one and a large blue one. Was that the Night Walker coming back? When he was alive, he took the form of the night sky between dusk and dawn, but if he was in the process of rebirth, would he have taken the form of a second moon?

It made sense in a twisted sort of way. Her first instinct was to ask her mother, Moro, but she couldn't. The humans had taken that away from her, just as they had everything else.

She took a step forward, and fell. She heard the human scream right before she grabbed onto a ledge ten feet beneath her.

"Familiar, what are you doing? You're going to get yourself killed!"

San ignored her and dropped to the next ledge.

"I'm serious, familiar. Come back here this instant! As your master, I order you to return! Did you not understand the whole master-familiar part? I'm sure I explained it to you."

San dropped to the third ledge, and then landed on the grass on all fours. It had gotten dark, but the Night Walkers second moon gave enough light to pick out any landmarks. She had collapsed between the stone tower and the stone wall, but all stone blocks looked the same. She remembered that she was between a large ash and a young oak, so she ran lightly through the night until she found them.

She picked them up reverently. Though she was a wolf, she was stuck with the dull teeth and hairless body of a human. She had grown to be almost as cunning as her mother, but she couldn't spend every night curled up in her brother's fur and drinking milk from her mother's teat without feeling inadequate.

And so her father died, and gave her everything he could: his fur to keep her warm, and his teeth, which she fashioned into weapons she could use. Afterwards, she still needed to ride on the back of one of her brothers, but she could _hunt_ , and...and they were all she had left to remember her father.

From her mother, she had nothing. Even the memory of her love was tainted by the hatred she felt toward those who killed her.

She tucked the knife into her cloak, but kept the spear. Just in case.

She had seen an open gate that led out beyond the wall, but on the way back to it she caught a smell she recognized. It was a mix of straw and horse dung, from a small wooden building. Part of her wanted to pass it by, but her brothers were far away, and she still had slow, human legs.

The horse building's door had a simple latch that she could open. Inside was a dark, stinking prison. The horses, stuck in cells barely wide enough for them to lie down in, whinnied at her presence.

"I'm leaving this human place," she announced. "Some of you might prefer captivity, but if you don't, tell me, and I'll release you."

She waited uncertainly. Some animals, like Ashitaka's elk, served out of love, others, out of fear. And many couldn't talk at all, but just in case...

"I'd like to go outside," one of the horses said. "The humans will send me back here in the morning, but until then, I wouldn't mind some fresh air."

San opened the door to his stall, as well as for several others. In the end, about seven of them were trotting around happily, munching on the grass.

"Are you content with this?" San asked them. "Just one night outside before being locked up again?"

"What's the alternative?" one of the horses said. "Leaving? We'd either get captured by other humans or eaten. Here, we're safe."

"If that's what you want," she said. "I won't force you."

"Wait," another horse said. "Where are you going?"

"Home," she said. "To the forest." The nearest forest probably wasn't the one she grew up in, but Moro was well known. Surely she'd be able to find a pack that remembered her.

"The forest," the horse repeated. "I've never been in the forest. I mean, I've traveled through them, but I never, you know, lived there."

"Come with me, then," San offered.

The horse whinnied. "I...I couldn't. I'd get eaten by wolves or bears within a week."

San smiled. So there were wolves in the forest. "If you carry me, then I promise you that nothing in the forest will harm you."

"Can you do that?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Alright. I know I'll live to regret this, but I accept. Climb on my back, strange one. A new life awaits!"

San grinned and climbed up on the white stallion. "What's your name?"

"The humans call me Cotton," he said.

"I don't care what they call you. What's your name?"

"Alo."

"Alo? My name is San. Let's leave this place."

She didn't bother with a saddle or reins, not knowing how to use either, nor needing to. Together, they rode through the gate and into the night. San never looked back, but more than once she caught herself scratching at the strange symbol that had appeared on her right hand.

WWW

a/n I have to say, Familiar of Zero crossovers are the easiest things to write in the world. I've already started three others that I might never publish on account of them being really crappy. I probably shouldn't have published this one either, but I feel it stands out a bit because Louise's familiar is Windalfr instead of the standard Gandalfr.

Because Windalfr does very little in canon, I'm going to establish Windalfr's powers as I understand them. First, Windalfr can talk to animals. San can already do this, but most of those animals were lesser gods. Second, just as Gandalfr can strengthen himself, Windalfr can strengthen animals. Physically, San can already run really fast and jump fifteen feet in the air, so she wouldn't need the strength bonus anyway, but to strengthen animals, she has to touch them. The duration and magnitude the bonus lasts after she lets go will vary. At one point in canon, Julio's dragon managed to defeat several other dragons, so I'm using that as the basis for this ability. Third, Windalfr can control animals. This also requires touch, and the number of animals that can be controlled at once as well as the duration of the control varies, but more intelligent animals are easier to control than dumber ones. This ability cannot be used on other familiars. Again, in canon, Julio could control his own dragon, but not his enemy's dragons. The last two abilities ignite the familiar runes, but the first one does not.

In short, Windalfr's abilities allow San to make other animals her familiars, if only temporarily. Also, just as Saito's Gandalfr abilities varied according to his relationship with his Void Mage, San's animals will be stronger and more obedient when she's on good terms with Louise than when she's off on her own.

Finally, I'd like to say a few things about San's characterization. I love her as a character, but she's not a very nice person, at least with people. She's great with animals, though. In the movie, she was motivated by hatred to balance Ashitaka's all-loving nature. Despite it all, she's still very idealistic. Admittedly, believing that she could solve all her problems just by killing the right humans wasn't the best ideal, but it was still an ideal, and she also encouraged the apes to keep on trying to plant trees and so forth. In the end, her hatred still won out, as she admitted that she loved Ashitaka, but couldn't forgive the humans. Her relationship with humans and her own inner demons are issues that I'm eager to discuss later in this story.

I don't know where she got her knife and spear, so I invented a backstory for them. Her knife is about as long as her mother's teeth, so I decided to roll with it.


	2. Chapter 2

Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance

Chapter Two

The night air was pleasantly chill with a strong hint of pollen and grass. There wasn't even the suggestion of smoke or gunpowder, which San liked even better. She and Alo left the dirt road as soon as they escaped the stone fortress, traveling by the light of the stars and the blue and red moons.

"Alo," San asked. "How long have there been two moons?"

The horse tilted his head to look up at the sky. "As long as I can remember. I don't pay much attention to that sort of thing."

"I've only ever known there to be one until tonight."

Alo snorted. "Are you sure you weren't looking at them cross eyed?"

San smiled. "I'm sure."

"Then I can't help you. My life has mostly been a series of commands of stop and go. The moons never affected me that much."

"Then I'll just have to ask someone else." In the distance, San saw a forest. It wasn't _her_ forest, but it might have someone who knew her mother. She threw her head back, cupped her hands to her mouth, and howled.

Alo whinnied nervously. "Th-that's some, um, wolf imitation you have there."

A song pierced the midnight silence, answering her call. San smiled. "It wasn't an imitation."

WWW

Louise was up half the night looking for her familiar, and all she found were horses. She had never even gotten the wild commoner's name, and had to call out, "Familiar! Familiar!" until her voice gave out. She had gone to the spot where her familiar had landed, to where she had first summoned her, all around the central tower to beyond the outer wall, and all Louise got for her trouble was a sore throat.

She returned to her room tired and defeated. _What was she thinking, going off on her own?_ Louise thought. _What will people say when they find out that I couldn't even keep track of my familiar for one day?_ It was the mage's duty to look after her familiar, and in that, just like in every other aspect of magecraft, she had failed.

 _My familiar is out there, alone, with no one looking after her...and she can't even figure out how to open a door._

But that was her familiar's own fault for running off. _I hope she stays gone,_ Louise thought, plopping down on her bed. _I never wanted a stupid commoner familiar anyway._

The next morning, she climbed out of bed and cursed her own reflection. The day before, she had been meaning to have the healers look at the cut that her familiar had left her, but then Colbert had put the girl to sleep, and Louise had decided to stay with her until she woke up to prevent her from trying anything else foolish. Then her familiar had run away and she had to chase after her, and when Louise had given up, she had forgotten about the scratch and gone straight to bed.

The cut had healed completely by morning, and had left a scar right below her eye. It wasn't a large scar, but her face was one of the few things that she hadn't managed to screw up. Even the simplest spells blew up in her face and her body had never gotten the message that she was no longer twelve, but she had a nice face and pretty hair. Or at least she did. Now, she just had pretty hair.

She sighed, knowing that there was nothing that she could do about it anyway, and got ready for the day. Her first class for the day was...cancelled. All the second year students were given the whole day to spend with their familiars to get to know them better.

Crap.

WWW

The wolves San met were smaller than those from her own pack, but they were enough to send Alo into a fright.

"Are you the one who called?" their leader, a male with a dark grey coat and bright yellow eyes growled.

San placed a comforting hand on Alo's mane. "I am. I, San, daughter of Moro, seek permission to join your pack."

"In your howl, you gave the impression that you were a wolf."

Alo pranced nervously. "We should run," he said. "We should run _now_."

"I am a wolf."

"You look like a human."

San tried to keep her voice level. "My mother said that it is better to see with your heart than your eyes."

The pack leader studied her with both his eyes and his ears pointed at her as his mate and son circled around her. Alo grew more frantic, but San never took her eyes off the leader. _It would be terribly ironic_ , she thought, _to spend my whole life hunting humans, and then end up killed by my own kind._

"You are wolf," he growled. "You may hunt with us."

WWW

 _Why_ , Louise thought, _do they have us spend the entire Founder-cursed day with our familiars?_ Clearly the Academy's faculty, as well as its students, was intent on rubbing her nose in her latest failure.

All over the plaza, her classmates gloated over their magnificent summons, whether they were manticores or moles, owls or owlbears, geese or griffons. And then there was Louise, trying to pretend that she wasn't out of place.

"Why, hello, Louise. Have you met Flame?"

And then her day took a nosedive. Kirche von Zerbst trotted up to her, followed by a massive fire salamander with a burning tail.

"Hello, Zerbst," she said curtly. "That's your familiar? I've seen worse."

"Yes, he's marvelous, isn't he? Native to the Fire Dragon Mountains, if I'm not mistaken. But speaking of worse, where's yours? That commoner you summoned looked like fun."

"She's out, um..." What did commoners usually do? "She's out getting tea."

"Tea," Kirche said flatly.

"Yes, tea. It's a common heated beverage. I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Yeah, I think I've had it once or twice." Louise waited for her to leave, but she kept on talking. "You know, there's a rumor going around that you knew you couldn't get the summoning spell right, so you grabbed some commoner off the street and had her pretend to be your familiar."

Louise bristled. It wasn't enough that they called her Louise the Zero for all the spells she messed up, but she summoned her familiar fair and square. Couldn't they at least let her have that? "Rumors that I'm sure you had nothing to do with."

"Of course not," Kirche said with a laugh. "I actually tried to squelch them."

Louise looked up at her in surprise. "You did?"

"Of course I did. I mean, really, I should give you a little credit. If you were willing to fake a summoning, they you would have brought a trained dog that to follow you around, not some commoner in a wolf suit that was willing to _attack you on sight_!" She laughed again, but as usual, Louise didn't appreciate the joke. Of course, if her familiar had stabbed Kirche in the face, it would have been hilarious, but still. "So, where is she?"

"What?"

"Your familiar's certainly taking her time with the tea. It would be a shame if she got lost or something."

"I should probably check on her. Excuse me."

"I'll come with you," Kirche offered.

"I appreciate your concern," Louise said through gritted teeth. "But don't you have some blind, weak minded lord to seduce?"

Kirche laughed through the insult. Louise hated how she could do that. "I've been doing that all morning. Besides, that little spitfire acting like your personal maid? I wouldn't miss that for the Prince of Albion."

Her mind raced. She couldn't let Kirche find out that she had lost her familiar, but she couldn't shake her, either. Sure, eventually _everyone_ would know, but if she could put it off long enough, it wouldn't be that bad. But maybe Kirche already knew, and she just wanted to rub her face in it. That would explain her persistence, although her familiar's absence wasn't that much more humiliating than her familiar's presence.

"Um, Miss Valliere?" A maid with black hair approached them. "I apologize for the interruption, but I have a message for you from Professor Colbert." She handed Louise a note, bowed, and left.

Louise read it quickly and tried not to show her relief. Founder bless the man! "Well, Professor Colbert needs to see me. I sounds important, so I better go."

"Oh. Well, later then."

Unfortunately true, Louise thought as she made her way to the Fire Tower where Colbert kept his office, but she had until then to come up with a more permanent solution. Maybe her familiar could get sick with something chronic, and had to stay in bed. And then die. How tragic.

Colbert, for a fire mage, seemed to have little interest in magic, favoring old books and mundane experiments. His office was full of records of the melting points and combustion properties of different materials and designs of contraptions that she couldn't understand.

"Ah, Miss Valliere," he said, standing up from his desk. "Thank you for coming."

"Think nothing of it, Professor. I'm happy to come."

"Thank you for saying so, but I'm sure you want to get back to your friends, so I won't take long."

Of course. Why wouldn't she want to go back to that flock of vultures? "So, what may I help you with?"

"You see, while every teacher at the Academy has their own area of expertise, we are expected to know a bit of everything, because while we can write our own lesson plans, we can't control what sort of questions our students ask us. Why, just the other week, I believe it was young Mr. Bonoton who asked me a question about..."

Louise knew as well as anyone how easily Colbert could get distracted. If no one forced him back to the topic at hand, he could keep rambling for hours...so she let him finish.

"...and that's why you should never ask a sphinx rhetorical questions."

"That's very interesting, Professor."

"Yes, nonstandard voice-protocols of interrogative creatures is fascinating. Anyway, I was reading about familiar runes last night, and there is so much about them that we still don't understand. There's one school of reasoning that argues that the rune refers to the familiar itself, and the rune would be the ancient word for 'cat' or 'dog.' Of course, it's more complicated than that, because not all cat familiars have the same runes, but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of species and subspecies of cats, and taxonomy is a lost art, let me tell you."

"Indeed."

"Or the rune could refer to the role and specialties of the familiar, and it tells you if the familiar is best suited for spying on the mage's enemies, gathering spell reagents, or any of the other thousand things that familiars are used for. The other school argues that the rune refers to the mage who summoned it. We classify mages by their level, dot through square, and by their element, but I've always considered that a crude system at best. For example, I specialize in fire magic, but I can cast air spells much more easily than earth spells, and I can cast earth spells more easily than water spells. I know other fire mages who are just the opposite, and can cast water nearly as easily as their specialty. Proponents of the second school argue that the rune offers a more accurate description than what we use today, such as that the mage has great aptitude for healing magic and statecraft, and so forth."

"Fascinating." Louise wondered how long it would take Colbert to notice if she fell asleep.

"And that brings me to the point of why I asked you here. I got a glimpse of your familiar's runes, and though I could tell that they were a bit unusual, I never got the chance to study them. Would you mind if I took a second look at them, for purely scholarly reasons?"

She blinked. "You want to do what?"

"I would like to take a look at your familiar's runes. That's not a problem, is it?"

Crap.

WWW

It had been too long since San had gone hunting just to find something to eat. It seemed like the last half of her life was spent fighting humans instead of food. Alo, Niahak, Tala, and Usdi were not her family, but when they were hunting together in the woods, caring more about their next meal than about revenge against mankind, it almost made her feel like she was a little girl again.

Their prey was an old buck with a bad infestation of ticks. The ticks, which they had found rubbed off on the trunk of a tree, singled him out. A healthy deer could run as far and as fast as they could, but one suffering from a thousand tiny bites from a thousand tiny parasites wouldn't last.

The buck finally came into view. They were gaining on him; for most of the hunt, they trailed him by his scent, his tracks, and by his simple, desperate mind. Now that they could see him, the hunt was nearly over.

Still riding Alo, San readied her spear and stood up on his back. The balance was tricky, the jolt of every gallop threatened to throw her off, but she had practiced the trick since she was a little girl. Back then, she thought it was just a game.

Every time they got close, the buck would force out a burst of speed until he got a bit more distance. The most desperate hour of the deer's life could indeed last an entire hour, but San was not as patient as the rest of her kind.

When they were as close as the deer would let them before sprinting again, San leapt from Alo's back and stabbed at the deer's hind leg. She fell to the ground, knocking the wind out of her, and Alo veered to the side to avoid trampling her. Tala caught the deer as he stumbled, bringing him down, and before he could find his feet again, Niahak came down on his throat for the kill.

"That was an interesting tactic," Usdi said. He had come to watch, being too young to participate in the hunt.

San stood up slowly. Scraped knees and dirty elbows were nothing new to her, and she preferred the thrill of a sudden kill over feinting and nipping at the prey until it could no longer stand. "I come from an interesting pack." That answer seemed to satisfy him, and he trotted up to his parents to join the meal.

San turned to Alo. "Are you okay?" They had herded the deer through the woods and shallow creeks, hoping that the roots and rocks would trip him up with his longer legs, but that chase had been nearly as bad for the horse.

"I'm okay. Of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay? I've been on hunts before. Of course, usually I was with hounds instead of wolves, and they didn't eat it on the spot, but I'm fine."

"Thank you," she said. "I never could have kept up without you."

Alo didn't answer, and instead turned away shyly and started munching on grass. San made a mental note to hunt something less persistent next time, like a rabbit. She knew a few tricks to get them out of their holes. And the deer would last a while with just the four of them eating, and San had a way to get to the marrow that didn't involve burying the bones for a month and hoping that they remembered where.

San drew her knife and joined the rest of the wolves. They were a good pack, but they weren't her family. They didn't recognize Moro, the Night Walker, or any of the other names San offered them. Even more discouraging, they knew of no time when there was only one moon, and knew of no part of the world where there were not two.

She began to feed, cutting off bits of meat small enough to swallow. Despite everything, she really should have felt more at home with this pack, but there was something nagging at the back of her mind that she couldn't name. Maybe after spending so much time hunting humans, a deer just couldn't compare. No, hunting was the wrong word. She had been at war with the humans, striking out at them whenever they strayed too far from their walled town, hoping that eventually she'd be able to kill that demon Eboshi who led them.

And after that, after being willing to risk everything to create a better future for her dying world, how could she go back to hunting for her day to day survival? How could she go from fighting in a war that meant everything to living a life that meant nothing?

Niahak, Tala, and their son, Usdi were fine with such a life, and that, more than anything else, separated her from them.

WWW

What Colbert should have done was decide that Louise had nothing that he wanted and then dismiss her so he could get back to work. Instead, he offered his condolences for her loss and made her a cup of tea.

As a Valliere, Louise needed neither pity nor mockery, but if she had to choose, she'd have chosen the later. Mockery, at least, was familiar.

"I can't say how sorry I am that this happened," he said. "Are you faring?"

"Oh, I'm fine," she said, a bit snippier than she intended. "It's my runaway familiar that has the problem. As soon as she woke up, she jumped out the window without as much as a 'how do you do!' I don't know what I could have done differently without having her tied up for the rest of her life."

Colbert nodded understandingly. "Yes, the art of controlling one's familiar is a complex one that I fear we should have covered more."

"What do you mean?" Louise said. "Isn't that the whole point of the Familiar Contract? To control it?"

"The Contract helps," he said. "But as it affects the mind, a familiar with a strong mind would be less affected."

"Like a human?"

He nodded.

Well, that wasn't so bad. It wasn't that the contract didn't take, it was that Louise had summoned a more challenging familiar. "But it still doesn't make sense. Even if she weren't my familiar, a commoner should have at least heard me out before running off."

Colbert frowned thoughtfully before continuing. "Let's say, for example, that you had a dog. If you play with it, it will follow you around, but if you ignore it, it will leave. Cat's are just the opposite. If you try to play with a cat, it will ignore you, but if you ignore it, it will demand your attention."

Dogs? Cats? Colbert had a thing for non sequiturs. "...Okay."

"Now, instead of a dog or a cat, let's pretend you had a human. Then what do you do?"

Louise took a sip of her tea. It was a bit too bland and far too hot. "Assuming that this human is a commoner? I'd give her a place to sleep and food to eat and clear, direct commands so that she'd know what she was supposed to do."

"So, you'd treat her like a maid."

Louise hesitated, sensing a trap. "So?"

"If you had to guess, what fraction of the commoners in Tristain would you say worked with the nobility?"

If Louise remembered correctly, about one in ten people could do magic, so that left the other nine to be commoners. She thought back to her family's estate. There were maids, cooks, gardeners and the like as commoners, and then there were Louise, her parents, and her two sisters as nobility, so five nobles and about twenty or so commoners. "About half?" she guessed.

"I suppose growing up among the upper nobility is giving you a skewed perspective. Even this Academy as a whole is a poor microcosm for Tristain. While Dukes and barons often have dozens of servants, most of the lesser nobility have none at all. On average, only about one commoner in ten decides to work as a servant."

"Really?"

He nodded. "While the maids and cooks at the Academy work for nobles because we're rich and powerful in comparison, the rest of their social class avoid us like the plague for exactly the same reason."

"What? But that doesn't make any sense!"

Colbert shrugged. "It does to them. But back to my previous question, if you had a human, what would you do?"

She realized that the only commoners that she had ever interacted with were commoners who had chosen to interact with nobles. The weak and poor followed around the rich and powerful for money and protection, but why would the rest of their social class avoid nobility...like the plague, Colbert said? Did they want poverty and danger? That made no sense. She was missing something, she just couldn't say what. If the commoner servants wanted physical and financial security, what did the rest of the commoners what? Something that money couldn't buy...

"If I had a human, I would ask her what she wanted most, and then go from there," Louise said. Colbert smiled in approval. "But what good does that do me now?"

"It does you good in two ways. First, having a familiar is a great learning experience, and if your familiar only taught you one lesson, then you ought to learn it. Second, not everyone gets a second chance. Sometimes the first one is all you get, and then after that it's all over." His eyes glazed over in a moment of melancholy. He forced a smile. "But not always. And if you're one of the lucky few, then when that second chance comes, you need to make sure you're ready for it."

WWW

As the days turned into weeks, the deer they had caught became reduced to nothing, his bones broken and licked clean and the everything they didn't eat taken by scavengers. They had gone on other hunts after that, taking another deer, a few hares, and even some fish, but while the hunts filled her belly, San felt the rest of her grow more and more empty. Alo, on the other hand, had settled in quite nicely after Usdi stopped making jokes about eating him, becoming just as comfortable as San assumed that she would be.

One night when she couldn't sleep, she decided to lie down and look at the stars. That used to relax her, but ever since she came to this land, even the stars seemed off.

"Have you ever hunted humans, San?" Usdi asked, the pads of his four feet rustling against the unkempt grass as he approached her.

She didn't bother to sit up. " _Yes."_ After a few days with the pack, she discovered that she could think her words to them without speaking. Moro, her brothers, and many of the other animals in her forest could do it, but she never could until recently.

Usdi sat down next to her and looked up at the overhanging branches of the surrounding trees to see what she was looking at. Those branches swayed as the wind whistled through them and reached upwards as if to embrace the stars, but Usdi seemed to be scanning them for bird nests and wild cats. "I never have," he said. "Neither of my parents have either, but they won't go near those creatures. They're not strong and they're not fast, but Father insists that they're dangerous."

" _Niahak is right,"_ she thought to him. " _They can kill anything they see."_

"But you hunt them."

" _There's a trick to it."_ Not a very effective trick, but by keeping her distance and moving quickly or by attacking a night, the humans' weapons were less accurate.

"Can you show me this trick?" He didn't ask her to explain it to him. Wolves learned by watching and by doing, not by listening. "A trick to hunt humans should not be forgotten."

" _I'll need a human."_

"I found one."

San sat up. " _Here? In the forest?"_

Usdi looked her in the eye. "There is a human den not far from here. Humans do not often go there, but tonight the earth carried one to the den and back. The human may return. I do not know."

San stood up. Usdi's human might be a good one, like Ashitaka, but more likely it was like one of the humans from Iron Town. Either way, a human in the forest should not be ignored, and if the human was a destroyer, then, like Usdi said, a trick to hunt humans should not be forgotten.

WWW

Louise made small talk with Miss Longueville as they made their way to Fouquet's hideout, mostly because she barely tolerated Kirche's company and Tabitha was too busy reading her book to talk to anyone. But since their brief conversation derailed onto the topic of how Longueville lost her noble status, Louise waited through the trip in silence and tried not to worry.

It didn't work, though. As the two chestnut mares dragged their cart through the dirt road into the forest, Louise grew more and more convinced that volunteering to reclaim the Staff of Destruction was a bad idea. She had a ways to go before she became even a dot class mage, and Fouquet was a triangle class mage at the very least.

But Louise was a noble, and nobility was more than magic, and it was more than wealth. It was pride, and the day she let go of that pride was the day she let go of who she was.

Also, she couldn't help to feel slightly responsible for the Staff of Destruction getting stolen in the first place. Shortly before the heist, she had gotten into an argument with Kirche. The Germanian had snuck into her room and discovered that Louise's familiar was not, as she had said, sick in bed, so Louise told her that she had died. Any decent noble would have apologized for bringing up such a sensitive subject, but instead Kirche accused her of lying and demanded proof of such a tragedy.

So Louise cast a spell at her.

She didn't lose her temper, of course, and even if she did, she did so in a perfectly ladylike manner, but she missed anyway, leaving a crack in the Academy wall twenty feet above her. Kirche made a bad joke about her being unable to hit the broadside of a barn and laughed, but when Fouquet struck, her golem left a hole in the wall right where Louise's spell hit.

So really, the whole thing was Kirche's fault, but you could hardly expect a Zerbst to clean up her own messes.

Tabitha closed her book suddenly and scanned the forest.

"What is it, Tabitha?" Kirche asked.

"Is it Fouquet?" Louise looked around to see what Tabitha was looking at, but all she saw were trees.

Tabitha opened her book again and resumed reading. "No."

The road led to the shack where Fouquet was last seen, and Longueville stopped the horses. "Well," the secretary said. "Here we are."

Louise jumped as a wolf howled in the distance. "A little twitchy, aren't you, Zero?" Kirche laughed. "No one's going to think less of you if you turn back now. I mean, Louise the Negative just doesn't have the same ring to it."

She glared at her. "Shut up, Kirche. I can handle myself." And, traveling back through the forest alone would be more dangerous than facing whatever was in the shack as a group, not that she was afraid or anything.

"I'll stay outside," Longueville offered. "Just in case Fouquet comes back while you're in there. If I see anything, I'll _howl_." She smiled.

 _Just great,_ Louise thought. _Now even the secretary's making fun of me._ As she made her way to the shack, though, she couldn't help but take a backwards glance, trying to shake the feeling that she was being watched.

WWW

San devoured any information she could gain from the human den. She could tell that a human had been there recently, but only one, and it hadn't stayed for very long. There were undisturbed cobwebs in the corners and only one set of footprints in the dust, and the human smell had entirely vanished. The only thing that stuck out was a long, thin box that wasn't covered in dust.

Usdi howled in the distance. _Danger! Humans!_ San's first instinct was to wait by the door (which had taken her forever to figure out how to operate) and ambush them as they came into the den. But she didn't know how many humans were coming, and the human den made her feel trapped. If the humans decided to wait outside and fire their guns at her, then she'd get killed.

She climbed out a window on the side furthest from the road and ran through the forest as silent as a shadow.

"I did not eat the horse," Usdi told her as they met up.

"It's true," Alo said, sounding surprised. "He didn't."

"Did you find anything useful in there?"

San shook her head. " _I shouldn't have gone in there at all."_

Usdi barked a laugh. "I'm still surprised you did. I wouldn't have gone inside a human place for a flock of sheep."

San peered through the trees to the road. She saw a pair of horses tied to a cart, but no humans. " _Where are they?"_

"Three of them went into the den right after you came out. A fourth one wandered into the forest. I couldn't keep track of it."

San nodded. Four humans. Those weren't terrible odds, but humans were so strange. Some were completely harmless, but others were deadly, and until she got a look at them, she wouldn't be able to tell which sort she faced.

She knew that she should wait and watch them come and go. Wolves would often study herds of deer for days before choosing one to go after, and humans were far more dangerous than deer, but San had always been an impatient wolf.

She studied the two horses that the humans brought with them. " _Okay, here's the plan. I'm going to cut those horses loose and we're going to chase them off. The humans will be stranded here and will have to walk home."_ She paused. Fleeing through the forest would weaken and exhaust them. If the humans fought instead it would give San a better idea of their strength. Besides, panicked marksmen were more likely to miss. But if she could find a way to injure one of them, the other three would leave it behind. " _Then we'll go after the fourth human. I'll need your help tracking it, but after that, keep your distance, and never let it see you standing still."_

San climbed on Alo's back to free the horses when the earth opened up and a demon stepped out.

It didn't have the oily black tendrils that marked the demons San was familiar with, but she knew a demon when she saw one. It was light brown, as though made from dirt and stone, with patches of grass growing from it, and two black craters for eyes. It had thick arms and legs and stood nearly as tall as the trees.

"Is this part of the plan?" Usdi asked.

" _New plan. Follow my lead."_

"Which is?"

Good question. They should kill the demon before it had the chance to do much damage, but if it wanted to kill the humans first, she had no reason to stop it, or way to. She pulled her mask over her face just in case.

The demon stepped towards the human den, shaking the earth with each step, and knocked the roof off its walls. A whirlwind crashed into the demon, and tongues of flame exploded from the den into its face. The humans inside must have caused that using weapons that the humans of Iron Town never displayed, but neither harmed the demon.

The demon was a moment away from demolishing the den with the humans still inside when God showed up. If the Deer God was the Forest Spirit, this god was the Sky Spirit. She had sky blue skin, a long, serpentine neck and tail, and broad wings. She swooped down on the demon, raking its head with her claws, knocking it off balance. The humans scurried out of the den like so many rats, trying to get away.

The humans wore matching clothes and were distinguishable by size and coloration only. They ran, short blue, tall red, and short pink. San peered at the last one in surprise. She recognized that human; it was the same one she had talked to weeks ago. That human had...made no sense whatsoever.

The demon swatted at the Sky Spirit, forcing her to circle around it at a distance. The humans spread out, and the pink one turned to face the monster. It set down the box she carried and pointed a slender rod at it. It must have been a gun of some sort, because while San didn't see any flash of fire or smoke, part of the demon's body exploded. Not enough to kill it. Just enough to annoy it.

The demon turned towards the pink human and raised a massive fist to crush it, and San would wonder for the rest of her life why she did what she did next. While humans generally weren't much better than demons, the fact that a god intervened on their behalf meant something. That was the most logical explanation, and she used that to justify her actions. But whatever the reason, she willed Alo into action. The symbols on her hand burst into light as Alo gallopped faster than he ever had before, and she grabbed the human out from under the demon's fist.

The human looked around wildly before realizing where she was. "What? Who are...you! You saved me, just like you were supposed to! Where have you been all this time? Have you been following me?" She sat in front of San on Alo's back, still holding that long box.

Alo ran past the demon and into the forest in a show of speed and agility as he darted around trees and over roots that would have put a rabbit to shame. Usdi tried to catch up.

"I'm trying to follow your lead," Usdi said, "but I have _no_ idea where you're going."

"Neither do I!" San shouted back.

"What?" the human asked.

"That demon! Did you bring it here?"

"Demon? You mean the earth golem? No, Fouquet made that."

 _Fouquet?_ "Is that a human?"

"Of course he's a human. Unless he's an elf. Oh, Founder, I hope he's not an elf."

Typical. She wondered if there were any demons that _weren't_ made by humans.

"None of our spells can stop the golem, but if we find Fouquet, we might be able to force him to dismiss the thing."

San nodded. Plans that solved problems by killing humans were her specialty.

The demon–or golem, as the human called it–stomped into the forest after them, snapping trees like twigs and sending birds into flight.

"Danger! Danger!" the birds squawked.

" _A human is responsible for this destruction!"_ San called after them. " _If you help me find it, then I can stop this!"_

"Danger! Danger!"

" _And I'll give you a strip of meat."_ Her stomach was smaller than it should have been, so she had to eat every day to keep up her strength. She kept a few strips of meat on her person to munch on between hunts.

The birds fell silent for a moment. "Mine? Mine?"

" _If you help me!"_

"Human? See human! Pink human! Green human! Red human! Blue human!"

The pink human sat right in front of her, and the red and blue ones exited the den with her, and Usdi mentioned a fourth one that separated from the rest. "There are four humans in this forest, and I think they all came with you."

"What? How do you know that? There must be a fifth one hiding somewhere, and that fifth one is Fouquet!"

"There is no fifth human! There's a pink one, a green one, a red one, and a blue one, no more!"

The human mumbled a few words under her breath. "Hold on, Miss Longueville was supposed to stand as a lookout. She never warned us when the golem showed up! The green one's Fouquet!"

" _Usdi, find the fourth human who wandered into the forest. That one's our prey."_

"I have to tell the others!" She looked up. "Kirche! Tabitha!"

The Sky Spirit carried two humans on her back. "Hey, Louise!" the red one called out. "You're alive! Good for you!"

"Miss Longueville is Fouquet!"

"Are you sure? How do you know that? Where is she?"

Usdi howled, a far more pleasant cry than his warning howl before. _Prey found._

"Never mind! Found her!"

A whirlwind tore through the forest, stripping the leaves off the trees and flinging a green-haired human into the clearing. Alo carried San out of the forest and they prepared to charge.

The human, Fouquet, pointed its weapon at them. San didn't know if it was going to fire a toxic ball of metal at them or something else entirely. Fortunately, Usdi bolted out of the forest towards his prey.

 _Usdi! Go for its right arm!"_

Usdi grabbed onto its arm with his teeth, and it let out a scream. Fouquet didn't drop its weapon, but the human was no longer aiming at anyone.

San readied her spear to impale the human, but the golem slammed its fist into the ground between them. Alo didn't have time to stop or veer away, so he jumped, clearing the obstacle with impossible grace, landing on the other side of Fouquet. San jumped from his back, stabbing her spear into the ground to break her momentum, and then darted towards Fouquet to run her through.

The pink human cried out behind her. "Stop! Stop!"

San stopped, the point of her spear at Fouquet's throat. "Why?"

"I surrender!" the human begged. It dropped its weapon, and the demon dissolved into dirt. "I surrender! Please don't kill me!"

"I said stop, you stupid horse!" the pink one called again. "Stop already!"

Oh. She was talking to Alo. " _Alo, calm down. The danger has passed."_

Alo relaxed and trotted over to her, the pink human still on his back. "Ah, good horse. Miss Longueville, Fouquet, for multiple accounts of breaking and entering, theft, larceny, and wanton endangerment, I'm placing you under arrest."

"I surrender already! Now are you going to call off your dog, or are you going to let it rip off my arm first?"

She looked at Usdi, then at San. "Familiar, let her go. She's no longer a threat."

Usdi looked at San, his jaws still latched onto the human's arm, which was bleeding through its clothes. "So, what's the plan?" he asked. "I don't like the idea of eating this one with all the other ones watching."

" _You probably shouldn't eat it at all. My mother always said that humans taste too oily, and if you eat too many humans, you might end up like one of them."_

Usdi growled, but he let go. The Sky Spirit landed, and a red and a blue human climbed off her back.

"Well, that was fun," the red human said. It grinned at San. "Hold on, isn't that the familiar you summoned?"

The pink one nodded with pride. "Yes. Yes she is."

"But didn't you say that your familiar was sick? And dead?"

She looked away. "She got better."

"Yeah, well, all's well that ends well." The red one approached San with a smile. "Hey, there. Nice mask. I'm Kirche. Pleased to meet you."

Usdi growled and San glared. There were far too many humans standing far too close for her liking. She turned to the Sky Spirit. " _Great one, can these humans be trusted?"_

The spirit turned her long, serpentine neck towards her and looked at her with her large, nearly glowing eyes. "Who, me?" she said cheerfully. Her voice sounded childish, contrasting with her majestic form. "Of course. These humans are wonderful, and Tabitha here is the best one ever!"

The blue human looked at the Sky Spirit, then at San, but said nothing.

" _Then I'll leave Fouquet to you. Please see to it that the human does not return."_ She turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" the pink human asked. "Familiar? Wait!"

The red human chuckled. "Do you two, like, need a moment or something?"

"Yes," she said. She climbed down off Alo's back with difficulty, as though used to a saddle, and set down her box. "Take the Staff of Destruction and Fouquet back to the Academy. We'll catch up."

The rest of the humans left, taking the cart and two horses with them. The horses had tried to run, but bound to each other and the cart, they didn't get far. The humans rode off in the cart with the Sky Spirit circling around them in the sky, leaving San, Usdi, and Alo alone with the human.

"What do you want?" San demanded, standing on the edge of the forest. Usdi had already gone deeper in and waited for her.

"I...I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Louise. What's yours?" She smiled hopefully.

"My enemies called me Princess Mononoke."

"Princess? What a pretty name. Wait, why did your _enemies_ call you that?"

"Because they knew that they had done great wrong. And that I would kill them for it."

"Oh. Um, what do your friends call you, then?"

"San." She wished the human Louise would leave her alone.

"Well, San, I know that you didn't ask me to summon you and that we don't know each other very well, but since I did bring you here, I can't help but feel responsible for you. Are you doing okay? Are you happy here?"

Happy? San stared at Louise through the holes of her mask, gritting her teeth. No, she wasn't happy. She was lost and alone and confused, knowing nothing except that she wasn't where she was supposed to be.

"You're not, are you?" Louise said. "What can I do? If there's anything I can do to make you happy, San, please, tell me."

San turned away and faced the forest. It was darker than the bare, open road, but San liked the darkness. It felt safe. "Go away."

Louise grabbed her by the arm. "What do you want? If I can give it to you..."

San glared at her. "I want to kill humans," she said, hoping that it would make her leave.

Louise didn't even flinch. "No you don't. If you did, you wouldn't have saved me."

Louise had a scar on her left cheek. San hadn't noticed it before, but it was in the same place where she had cut Akitasha. San shook off her grip and turned away. "That was different."

"I'm human!" Louise said. "If you want to kill humans so much, kill this one!" Her pink eyes shimmered with unshed tears. San didn't know what she was so desperate about, but she preferred it when the humans were shooting at her. Because as long as they hated her, she could keep on hating them back.

"You want to know what I want? I've hated you my whole life, all you humans for what you did to me, to my home, my _family_!" She remembered her world diminishing day by day, tree by tree, and god by god until the forest was nothing more than dead wood covered in moss. "You have no idea the demons you create!"

 _There's a demon inside you._ Ashitaka had said that. No matter how far away he was, he still haunted her. _This is what hatred looks like!_

"I've carried that since I could walk, and that hatred never _helped_ me, it never stopped my _mother_ from dying!" All it had done was make sure that she ended up alone. Ashitaka had left to help repair Iron Town, into the den of monsters that San would never let herself forgive, where she could never follow.

 _This is what happens when it catches hold of you! It's eating me alive!_

San tore the mask from her face with a snarl. "And I'm sick of it! You know what I want? I want to be free of all that!" She stopped, surprised at her own words...

 _And very soon it will kill me._

...and at her own honesty. "I want to be free."

She didn't resist as Louise threw her arms around her and buried her face in her chest. "Come with me," she whispered. "I can help you. I know I can."

San almost wrinkled her nose in disgust. A human town was the last place she wanted to go. She could handle one or two humans at a time, but the thought of being surrounded by them sickened her. Humans were easiest to tolerate at a distance, whether that distance was a thousand miles or the separation between life and death.

But hatred at a distance was still a demon in her, and being away from humans for weeks hadn't diminished her loathing for them as much as one day with Ashitaka had. She would never feel at home among humans, but the forest she was in with the pack that she had been hunting with, that was not her home either.

" _What do you think, Alo?"_ she asked. " _Would you like to live among humans for a time?"_

"If that's where you're heading, I'll come with you," the horse said. "Personally, this forest has been a bit too exciting for me."

"So that's it?" Usdi growled. "You're going to go play with humans now?"

" _I am sorry. There is something that I need to do, and I cannot do it here."_

Usdi bared his teeth for a moment, but then relaxed. "So be it. I'll remember your lesson next time I find a human in my forest."

" _Good hunting, Usdi. Thank you."_

"Good hunting to you too, San." He turned to leave. "Just in case my parents ask, what will you be hunting? Humans?"

" _No,"_ San said, shaking her head. " _Demons."_

WWW

a/n The Familiar Contract is a blatant plot device, and if you think too much about it, a rather disturbing one, especially how it is used in canon. But I figured if I was going to keep the plot device, I should use it for something beneficial for both sides, like helping cure San of her chronic misanthropy.

I had San go off on her own for logical reasons, like that's what I imagine she would do in that situation and she needed time to make some animals friends before facing Fouquet, but mostly for dramatic reasons. She needed to enter the relationship from a position of power. In canon, Saito depended on Louise for everything from food to shelter, so Louise could do whatever she wanted to him. Here, knowing that San is perfectly capable of independence, they stand on more equal ground.

I hope that her decision didn't come as too sudden. San is a hard character to write, but in canon, she went from wanting to kill Ashitaka to trying to save his life, so she's pretty impulsive.


	3. Chapter 3

Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance

Chapter Three

"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,  
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.  
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments  
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,  
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,  
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,  
The clouds methought would open, and show riches  
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,  
I cried to dream again."  
-The Tempest

 _I won._ That thought amazed Louise, and she carried it in her head as she rode bareback in front of her familiar back to the Academy.

And San was _her_ familiar again, tentatively. Louise couldn't afford to lie to herself; if she made one wrong move, San would run back to the forest and Louise would never see her again. Still, having her back was more of a victory than retrieving the Staff of Destruction and apprehending Fouquet combined.

 _Don't screw this up._ That was another thought that went through her head on the way back. If she had learned anything from past experience, it was that her failures were many and that her victories backfired. Summoning her familiar was the first spell she had ever cast successfully, but she was so embarrassed about it–her–that she almost wished she had summoned nothing at all, and after San had run off, well, that wasn't Louise's greatest moment either.

The only thing she knew about her familiar was that San had issues. And hated mankind. And thought she was a wolf, which was ridiculous. She hoped. Oh, Founder, she hoped she hadn't summoned a werewolf. Louise would find out if San started trying to kill people next full moon. Or had an aversion to silver. Or if Louise found a way to politely, tactfully ask her if she turned into a flesh eating monster once a month.

 _I'll just offer her some silverware._ She imagined San sitting at the dining hall eating with a fork and knife, and smiled. Between San's face paint, bone necklace, and wolfskin cloak, she'd look ridiculous in any civilized setting. But if she changed her clothes...San carried herself with a definite degree of confidence, and her cloak could act like a noble's mantle. After all, hadn't people called her _Princess_ Mononoke?

The two of them caught up with Tabitha and Kirche in their cart shortly before they arrived at the academy. Tabitha sat in front with her book open, and Kirche lounged in the back.

"Hey, Louise," Kirche said with a wave. "Hey, Louise's familiar. Never did get your name."

"It's San," Louise replied. "How's Fouquet?"

"Not bleeding to death."

"Yes I am," Fouquet called out weekly. She must have been lying down, because Louise couldn't see her.

"She just says that for attention.

"...hate you. Hate you all."

"So, how'd you know she was Fouquet anyway?" Kirche asked.

Louise turned to face her familiar. "Well? Do you want to explain it?"

San stared intently at Tabitha's dragon. "No."

 _A girl of few words._ "Through exercise of superior logic and reasoning, Miss Longueville being Fouquet was the only suitable explanation."

"So, basically it was a lucky guess?"

"What? No! Luck had nothing to do with it!"

"Man, I'm glad that paid off. I mean, how would that have looked otherwise if we all went into the woods, and ended up maiming the only adult there? We could have gotten suspended!"

"It was not a guess! I'm just smarter than you!"

"It's okay, Louise, I'm not judging you. I'd rather be lucky than good, too."

Louise fumed, but she didn't answer. Letting her familiar interact with Kirche, she decided, wasn't a good idea if she wanted her to hate humans less.

WWW

"Well," Headmaster Osmond said after they had returned to the academy. "That is the last time I hire someone based on their appearance. Or personality. I swear, my next secretary is going to be a golem." He sighed. "By the way, did any of you end up using the Staff of Destruction? No? Oh well. It still makes a nice conversation piece, even if it doesn't do anything." He sat down and lit his pipe.

San wrinkled her nose. She had grown more and more agitated the closer they got to civilization, and Louise had to practically hold her hand the whole way into the academy, smiling and speaking in soft tones. Kirche, for once, had taken a leaf out of Tabitha's ever open book for once and refrained from saying anything.

In the headmaster's office, San stood at Louise's side in her feral posture, legs apart, knees bent, on her toes, and leaning forward. Her eyes darted all over the room, curious, challenging, and suspicious.

"Anyway," Osmond continued. "All of you have gone far beyond my expectations by coming back alive–"

"What?"

"I mean, of capturing Fouquet alive," he said. "I thought you were just going to get the staff and come back, so well done, all three of you."

"There are four of us," Louise said.

"Yes, you three are everything this Academy wants to create out of its students," he continued as though he didn't hear her, and considering his age, he might not have been faking. "So, Kirche von Zerbst and Louise de la Valliere, I intend to petition your promotion to knighthood."

"Sweet!" Kirche said. Louise accepted the reward with more dignity, but inside she was beaming.

"And Tabitha, since you're already a knight, I've decided to award you with the Elven Medallion of Valor."

Kirche grinned and gave Tabitha a pat on the back. "Wow, Tabitha, you're an honorary elf!"

Osmond blinked. "What? No, she..."

"That is seriously hardcore," Kirche continued. "Way to go!"

"That's not what it means at all!"

"Oh," Kirche said. "So what does it mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything! I just have to get rid of three of these things a year. It's part of the school politics."

"Huh. Well, I like my idea better. Don't you, Tabitha?"

Tabitha looked up with a neutral expression which Louise had learned to translate into, "I'd rather be reading."

Colbert opened the door and stepped into the room, puffing slightly from the stairs. "The, uh, thief is secured, and the imperial court is alerted, Headmaster, and is that Louise's familiar? I'm Professor Colbert. What's your name?"

He extended his hand, a friendly greeting between equals, but the significance of that expression was lost on San, who sniffed his hand, wrinkled her nose, and glared at him.

"Her name is San," Louise replied. "San, you can trust Professor Colbert. He's nice."

San kept glaring at Colbert as he took up position on the side of the room and never took her eyes off of him. Louise repressed a sigh. _Eventually,_ she'd teach her familiar proper etiquette.

"Anyway," Osmond continued. "Now that we have the Staff of Destruction back, the Ball of Frigg will resume as planned."

"Oh, right," Kirche said. "That's tonight, isn't it? I totally forgot about it."

"We couldn't really celebrate right after being humiliated by a thief," the headmaster continued, "but now that the Staff, and by extension, the school's honor is restored, we can all get jiggy with it, or whatever it is you kids say."

Kirche shuddered. "Not that."

Louise glanced at her familiar, who was still glaring at Colbert with those steely eyes of hers. She had a sudden image of San in a ball gown dancing with a handsome mage. She couldn't tell if her familiar would look great or ridiculous in a fancy dress. Probably the second.

"Well, now that is all settled," the headmaster said, "you're all dismissed. Have fun tonight, be safe, and stay in school. Or something. Now, Colbert, I understand you have something important for me?"

Colbert nodded vigorously. "The most important discovery of my life!"

Louise smiled as she left the headmaster's office. She valued the professor's advice, but Colbert could be remarkably childish when it came to his "discoveries," which often amounted to no more than a new way to boil water.

"What's a familiar?" San said as they descended the steps.

Louise turned. "What?"

"What's a familiar?" San said again. "Humans keep calling me that."

Louise tried to come up with an explanation that wouldn't offend her. The official explanation, that the familiar was a sort of magical servant or pet, would send San back to the forest before Louise had the chance to cry wolf.

"It means I can trust you," she said, which was technically true. "See, at one point a mage summons a familiar, which is often either a mundane animal like a frog or an owl, or a magical animal like a manticore or a dragon that the mage can...rely on."

"Do they ever summon humans?"

Louise knew that San wouldn't put herself in that category. "No."

San nodded. "Makes sense. Humans aren't trustworthy."

Louise froze. The taller girl stopped and turned to face her one stair below her so they were at eye level. "Do you trust me?" Louise asked.

San's eyes were dark brown with flecks of gold. "No." She turned away. "But I'm trying."

WWW

"The runes on her hand are identical, Headmaster," Colbert said. "That girl is Windalfr."

Osmond puffed on his pipe. The best thing about his secretary being a professional criminal was that now there was no one left to keep him from smoking. She was so fired, by the way.

"Who is?"

"Miss Valliere's familiar. She was just here. Wolfskin cloak, red face paint, necklace of teeth?"

"Oh, right. So, she's not a student here?"

"Um, no, Headmaster."

"Right, wrong uniform. I wasn't watching very carefully, but did she have a flute?"

"A flute, sir?"

"Yes, a flute. You know, like in the song. 'The right hand of God is Windalfr, the kind-hearted flute of the Lord.' Ring a bell?"

"Um, I think that part was supposed to be symbolic."

"And what of the rest of that line?" Osmond asked. "'He–or in this case, she–dominates all beasts of life, leading me through earth, sky, and water?'"

"I...don't know. If she has the power to control animals, I haven't seen it, but I haven't had the chance to study her yet."

Osmond nodded. "Well, keep your eyes open, and if you see anything interesting, be sure to not tell anyone at all."

"Not tell...but Headmaster, if that girl is Windalfr reborn, then this is huge!"

"Yes," Osmond said. "And so we should ignore it entirely and pretend it isn't happening."

Colbert furrowed his brow. "I...I don't follow."

Osmond suddenly felt very tired. Maybe he really was too old to keep smoking. Bah! He'd quit when he died, and not a second sooner. "Windalfr was the legendary familiar _of Brimir._ The Founder had four, Gandalfr to defend, Windalfr to watch, Myo...Myoznitnirn to advise, and, um, I forget the last one, but that's not important. Now, the mage who summoned her, Valliere, was it? I take it she's a very talented mage."

"Um, no," Colbert said. "Miss Valliere is persistent and determined, but talented, she is not."

So, Windalfr reborn without Brimir reborn. Odd. "Well, no matter. Legacy is more powerful than any spell. Are you familiar with Albion's Oliver Cromwell? A bishop, I believe, and out of the blue, he started claiming to be a void mage, and ended up conquering half of Albion. He didn't have half the claim as Valliere does. Now, imagine what would happen if those fools at the palace got a hold of such a weapon as Brimir's legacy?"

Colbert started. "What? But..."

"They'd abuse the heck out of it."

Colbert's eyes grew wide and his face paled. "But sir! She's not a weapon! She's a teenage girl! They both are!"

"Good!" Osmond said, smiling brightly. "See that they stay that way."

WWW

That night, the humans danced to the musicians' art, the light from their building shining out through their windows like the rising sun from inside a cave. San watched from the darkness.

"You can come in, if you like," Louise said, approaching her. "You might stand out, but that's not always a bad thing, and who knows? You might make a few friends."

San looked at her. Louise had changed from her normal clothes to a white dress with long gloves. If she knew more about humans, San might have understood what that meant. "I'd rather stay out here."

"I figured, but I thought I'd ask anyway." She stood next to her and looked at the building with the bright windows. "So, what do you think?" she asked. She motioned vaguely. "About this?"

It was...beautiful, in its alien way. The music, with its notes in harmony and hypnotic rhythm, and the gardens, with its sculpted bushes and enthroned flowers, were unlike anything she had ever experienced. And it was...wrong. The musicians could not compare with the cacophony of bird calls, and the delicate tulips seemed so fragile compared to the raw vitality of the wildflowers of the untamed fields.

And that's what humanity was, _tame._ Everything they touched became ordered, from their animals who obeyed their riders and obeyed their butchers with equal submission, to their trees carved into whatever shape pleased the humans most, to even the humans' own unnatural selves.

"I don't know," she said.

Louise looked disappointed. Disappointed! Because she didn't know for how long San _had_ known, for how long she had been as certain about the nature of humanity as she was about the difference between good and evil. For San to _not know_ what she thought about something human was an impossible miracle lost on the girl.

"Hey, San?" she asked. "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but how did you end up being raised by wolves?"

"When I was a baby, my... _human_ parents trespassed through a forest that was not theirs." Admitting that she had been born of humans disgusted her, but facts didn't care how she felt. "Moro, my mother, found them there, and they tried to feed me to her to give themselves time to escape. She adopted me instead."

"Oh, San," Louise said. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" she snapped. "About what? Can you imagine what sort of parents they would have been like if those humans had kept me?"

"Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense." Louise fell silent for a moment. "Is that why you hate humans so much?"

San shook her head. "No." Abandoning her was the best thing that pair of humans could have done for her, considering what they were, considering what they would have otherwise made her become. "I come from a cycle of hatred that began long before I was born." One that Ashitaka, in his beautiful, arrogant foolishness, had tried to end.

"Did you kill a lot of them?"

"I...no," she realized. "My brothers did, my mother did, but as much as I tried, I never managed to kill one." The only one that she had really wanted to kill was that human Eboshi, but she was always just out of reach. San smiled bitterly. "Sometimes I feel like I have failed at everything I ever tried." She didn't know why she said that, but it was true. She tried to kill Eboshi, Eboshi lived. She tried to save the forest, the forest was destroyed. She tried to save her mother... _spirits_ that still hurt. Moro might have been at peace with her own passing, but San never would be.

"The only thing I ever managed to do right was saving a human's life who was about to die." It seemed like such a shame to let Ashitaka die after the humans tried so hard to kill him. She looked down a Louise whose eyes seemed to shimmer. _And I've done it again,_ she realized. Once was a fluke, but twice was an indecipherable pattern.

Louise smiled and looked away. "You were the first thing I ever did right, too," she said. "Well, I'm going to head back to the ball. You're not going to disappear in the night again, are you?"

San smiled. "You can trust me." It wasn't like she was human or anything.

Louise stopped and looked over her shoulder at her. "Are you sure you don't want to come inside?"

San felt a sudden sense of deja vu, from when Ashitaka had gone with the humans to go to Iron town, stopping to invite her to go with him. _Are you sure you don't want to come inside?_ But she wasn't ready then, and she wasn't ready now. "No."

Louise accepted that, but after she left, San added two more words to herself, not sure if they were a lie or a promise.

"Not yet."

WWW

In her dreams, San remembered her first hunt. She had watched only and studied as as her brothers and her invincible mother brought down a fawn that was too slow to keep up with the herd.

The meat was chewy and red, but it was strong, and San cut off chunks of it with her father's tooth that she could swallow whole. She didn't know what she expected her first hunt to be like, but she had carried that dream for so long that the dream carried her through the reality.

Reality ended when the Forest Spirit stepped into view. The Deer God was sacred and not to be crossed or even, except in the most desperate circumstances, interacted with. Would he object to the wolves eating one of his own? The rest of his herd passed by, knowing that Moro's pack would not harm them in the presence of their deity. Plants sprouted and died around his talon-like feet with each step and antlers grew out of his head like the branches of a tree. The Deer God looked San in the eyes with his too-human face.

And smiled.

WWW

a/n This is my shortest chapter so far, mostly because I cut out a lot of it. My original plan for this chapter had San going to the Ball. Louise managed to persuade Osmond to postpone the ball for a week during which she got San a fancy dressed and blackmailed Guiche into helping to teach her to dance, but that chapter fought me every word of the way. At first I thought that it fought me because it was stretching me out of my comfort zone, like forcing yourself to go jogging when you'd rather eat pizza. But then I realized that it was because the storyline was ridiculous and contrived and that San herself was not ready for that sort of thing.

So I guess the moral of that story is to not leave your comfort zone. Or to not spend a lot of time getting ready for a formal dance, because those are incredibly boring anyway.

Anyway, I ended up with a chapter about half as long as I had planned and got it published weeks after I had hoped. But looking at it from another angle, I finished the chapter in half as many words as I thought I would need...and got it published weeks after I had hoped.

One last note on the topic of eye color. The Familiar of Zero character designs are based on exaggeration, because characters are more memorable if they stand out more, so they all have unnatural hair color and huge eyes. In Princess Mononoke, the art is based in realism. The scenery is breathtaking, and the forest is based off of a real place in Japan. In reality, you can't tell what color someone's eyes are unless they're really close, so in Princess Mononoke, you hardly ever get a close look at their eyes, and when you do, you realize that their eye color is all identical, so I've taken an artistic liberty and changed that.


	4. Chapter 4

Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance

Chapter Four

Sylphid was profoundly wise, but, like most gods, incomprehensible. Despite her size and her claws, she spoke as a child. Her wings took her over the walls whenever the mood struck her, and she seemed unable to keep a thought in her head for more than a minute, unless it involved food.

"...and mutton and beef and steak and bacon and venison and bacon...did I already say that?"

" _You did, yes,"_ San said. She leaned back against a stone wall, enjoying the shade. She had spent her whole life in the forest in the shade, and didn't like exposing herself to the sun all day long. Still, it was better than going inside the human building. The smell alone would kill her.

Sylphid looked down at her. "I'm not supposed to talk to humans," she admitted, as though just remembering that. "Tabitha told me so."

" _I'm not human,"_ San explained.

"You're not? You look human." She snaked her head down and sniffed her. "You don't smell human, though."

" _I'm a wolf."_

"Oh. That makes sense. I've never met a wolf before. I'm I allowed to eat those?"

San froze. Was this a test? " _I'd rather you not."_

"Aw, but I'm hungry!" There was a hidden message in her words, San knew it. If Sylphid tried to eat her, the dragon's innocence and hunger would not make her teeth hurt less, but she was lost in how she was supposed to apply that to herself.

"Ooh, look!" Sylphid said. "A butterfly! Imma catch it!" She flew off. "Aw, I caught it, now it's dead."

San frowned. Was she pursuing anything that she didn't want to destroy?

"You're giving that dragon a lot more credit than she deserves," Flame said. Flame was a massive red lizard who breathed fire. He walked with his tail raised to not ignite the grass. He was a familiar like Sylphid and, technically, San. "She acts like a child because she is one."

" _She's hundreds of years old."_

"And never got around to maturity. That won't happen until her fourth century."

" _And you're an expert on her kind?"_ There was some similarity. Sylphid was larger, blue, and had wings, but they both had four legs, a tail, and scales.

"Of course. They have a breeding ground in the mountains where I grew up. Those were fire dragons instead of wind dragons, but they're all pretty much the same."

" _Do you ever miss them?"_ she asked. " _Those mountains?"_

Flame slapped his tail against the wall like he always did when he felt uncomfortable. "I don't think about it that much. The climate's worse, the company's better. My food doesn't put up as much of a fight any more, and I don't have to worry about, well, anything."

It was the opposite with her. Ever since she arrived, her worries had only compounded. Even when she felt like she was on the right path, she was certain of nothing. " _And that's better?"_

She asked that mostly to herself, which was just as well because Verdandi stuck his head up out of the ground. He looked at her necklace with his beady black eyes as though that was all he could see. "Shiny?"

" _No."_

Verdandi was larger than any mole San had met, about three feet long and nearly as wide. He also had an unexplainable fixation on gems, including the crystalline dagger Ashitaka had given her.

He pretended not to hear her and stretched a dirty claw towards her.

" _I said, no!"_ She shoved him backward.

"But it's shiny, and I want it!"

" _And it's mine, and I'm not sharing!"_ It was the only thing she had from Ashitaka, and she'd sooner part with her father's teeth.

Verdandi looked from her to her necklace, comprehension slowly dawning. "Shiny?" Or not.

"I swear," Flame growled. "You have got to be the second dumbest familiar ever, right after that frog that thinks he's a prince."

"But it's shiny!"

"Alright, that's it. I'm going to eat you now."

"No!" Verdandi crawled back into his hole.

"Yeah," Flame said afterward. "When I was talking about the company being better, I was not referring to him."

For San, both the company and the climate were worse. She had left all her friends behind and was always surrounded by humans. And yet, she felt that she needed to be here anyway.

On the other side of the yard, a crowd of humans dispersed. Why they had gathered in the first place, San didn't know, but she had kept her eyes on them, more out of habit than fear that they were a threat. A carriage remained, attached to two creatures that San had never seen before. They looked like horses, but more slender and with coats so fine they seemed to glow. What set them apart was a horn they had in the middle of their heads. It was straight and narrow and spiraled to a tip.

"Hey, Flame," San said. "What are those?"

"Beats me," he said with his characteristic lack of curiosity. "Go ask them if you want to know."

"Maybe I will." She stood up.

WWW

There was great power in a kiss. Princess Henrietta was a figurehead devoid of real power, leaving the control of the kingdom to her advisors. The common people loved her because she had a reputation for kindness, but the more powerful, scrutinizing nobility saw that she lacked the ruthless courage to merit their loyalty. Perhaps one day she would acquire the strength to rule, but, to no fault of her own, she was not her father, and her presence did not demand respect.

She could, however, incite love. She could offer her favor to her subjects, in the form of the chance to kiss her hand. Those who impressed her got the chance to kiss the hand of a princess, and none of them would ever forget it. And since it cost her nothing except for a moment of her time, she offered it to nearly everyone she met.

For a mage, a kiss could also carry a spell. Nobles going to war often received a ward of protection from their loved ones, and mothers often left frightened children with a kiss to calm them through the night.

Most importantly, for Wardes, a simple spell could turn a kiss into a third ear, which was why he went through such pains every day to gain her favor. He had stayed behind to guard her majesty's carriage, and as the princess went about her business with the academy visit, Wardes had listened to every word she said.

He just wished that she would say something important.

" _Freedom is such a wonderful thing, Louise Françoise."_

 _"What are you saying? You're the royal princess, are you not?"_

 _"A princess born in her kingdom is like a bird being raised in a cage. You go here and there on your master's every whim."_

Wardes rolled his eyes. _Princess problems._ Well, when the Reconquista came to Tristain and took the throne from her, she'd get real problems, and wouldn't she be happy then!

But honestly, he had no grievance against Princess Henrietta. He could argue that the responsibility to rule an entire kingdom was to great to leave to an accident of birth, but the truth was that Halkeginia was full of petty monarchs content with the small slice of the world that chance had given them, while humanity needed a united front.

And so he listened, just in case she said something that the Reconquista could use, even if it meant eavesdropping on her reminiscences with childhood friends.

But who was the Louise Françoise girl she was talking to? The name rang a bell. He was engaged to a Louise, the youngest daughter of the Valliere family, but the chance that they were the same person...existed, actually. He couldn't remember anything between her first name and her family name, but she had been five or six when they had gotten engaged, and that was ten years ago, putting her at academy age.

He remembered that the child had cried a lot and wasn't skilled with magic, but little else about her stood out. His father had coveted the alliance between their families, and her father had consented to it. No one asked his opinion, but he had worn the mask of the dutiful son, happy to obey his father's whims.

 _And now...now you wear a different mask._

The princess's conversation had changed to the subject of her marriage and the Reconquista, interrupting his reverie.

" _They have been searching frantically for anything that could interfere with the marriage..."_

That was true. Wardes had been doing much of the frantic searching himself. Cromwell was a bold and ambitious man, but even he would think twice before assaulting both Tristain and Germania at once. Alone, Tristain would fall in a matter of months, but if Germania defended them, then who would the Reconquista attack? Gallia? Too powerful. Romalia? Too far.

" _And they've found something."_

He barely noticed as a girl in a wolfskin cloak approached her majesty's unicorns.

WWW

Hunters kept their eyes in front of them so you could look at them eye to eye with both your eyes, but horses and deer kept their eyes on opposite sides of their heads, so even when they were looking at you, they were looking at everything else.

" _Hello,"_ San said to the horse-like creatures. " _My name is San, Moro's daughter."_

"Greetings, San. I am Skuld, a unicorn in the service of Henrietta, Marianne's daughter.

"And I am Urd," the other said.

" _Who is Henrietta, that she should command your service?"_

"She is a healer," Skuld said. Her voice was as soft and gentle as a mountain stream.

"And a destroyer," Urd said.

"She will save this land."

"Or end it."

"But who are you, San, Moro's daughter, that you should command your own service?" Skuld asked.

" _I am the one I trust most,"_ San said.

The unicorns seemed to accept this. Their coats were as white as the moon from her home, but those _eyes,_ it was like looking into the darkness between the stars.

"There is a light in you, Daughter of Wolves, Daughter of Vengeance," Skuld said.

"Like the light of heaven to the righteous dead," Urd said.

"You will not save yourself, nor can you."

"But you might save those who will."

"Hey!" a human said, approaching them. "Back away from her majesty's unicorns, commoner." He had long grey hair and a wide-brimmed hat.

"This one is much like you," Skuld said. "There is a light in him."

"And a darkness," Urd said. "You will destroy each other."

"I'll give you till the count of three to remove yourself," the human said. "Or I'll remove you myself."

"Or save each other," Skuld said.

"One."

"Time will damn," Urd said.

"Or choice, redeem."

"Two."

"Choose, Wolf Daughter."

"Three."

"Choose, _Windalfr_."

"Air Hammer!"

WWW

Louise exited the main door of the academy to confront her familiar. She had a favor to ask of her.

She had to be the only mage in the history of forever who had to ask her familiar for favors. Or maybe the other mages just never admitted it. That made sense. She never thought that familiars had minds of their own before she met San, but there were probably plenty of mages that had willful familiars, and they just never told anyone.

She scanned the grounds. There were other students out, as well as some members of the royal guard, but San stood out compared to nobles.

She found her sitting on the ground in the shade of the outer wall. The hood of her wolf-skin cloak was up and her mask was down.

 _That's not a good sign._ She usually only wore her mask when she was hunting, and the pointy red ears which would have looked adorable on anyone else made her look even more dangerous.

"Hello, San," she said. "How are you doing?"

"I hate this place," she replied without looking up.

 _Blunt, as usual._ "I know what you mean," she said, forcing a smile. "This place gets on my nerves too after a while. I'm actually planning on leaving tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?"

San looked up, her eyes shrouded by the holes in her mask. "Where are you going?"

"Albion. Do you know where that is?"

San shook her head. "Is it far?"

"Yes."

"Sounds good."

"Oh." That was surprisingly easy. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

WWW

Henrietta liked Osmond's office. She had spent so much of her time in the palace surrounded by finery, the academic austerity that Osmond surrounded himself with was refreshingly quaint. Pens did not need to be encrusted with gems, and tables did not need doilies. _Nothing_ needed doilies.

"I'm impressed with your work with Fouquet," Henrietta said. "Most people would have sent word to the palace to deal with the thief, but you had the academy handle her itself."

Osmond leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe smugly. "Well, it was an academy problem, so the academy solved it. Besides, I couldn't let Fouquet steal my top conversation piece and get away with it."

Henrietta wasn't sure what role, if any, the old man played in Fouquet's capture, but as headmaster, he shared responsibility for the academy's successes as well as its failings.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burnt tobacco. She considered asking him to put out his pipe, but she knew that he would out of respect for her station. She never used her authority when she could help it; it made her feel like more a position than a person.

"I imagine it would have been quite embarrassing if she had escaped," Henrietta said. "Almost as embarrassing as her escaping after only being in custody for a few days."

"Oh, is that what happened?"

Henrietta nodded, smiling ruefully. "She must have had help from someone on the inside, which opens up a whole other set of problems...which aren't yours. You have enough problems of your own without adding mine to the mix."

"True, but I like other people's problems. I can look at them intellectually instead of emotionally. For example, now that we have seen Fouquet's face, you can spread her description around, forcing her to leave the country or risk the wrath of vengeful nobles. She might escape justice, but she'll never bother Tristain again. But when I try to solve my own problems, I hit nothing but dead ends. For example, I need to find an attractive secretary who doesn't mind me smoking, but doesn't smoke herself. I've never found smoking attractive in women, but I can't explain why, and before I know it, I've completely forgotten about the secretary and find myself wondering what effect the Albonian civil war will have on Germanian tobacco shipments."

"Oh." There was little else she could say to respond to ramblings, and scholars rambled more the older they got. "Before we get distracted, I have requested a favor from Louise François de la Valliere, which will cause her to miss school for a few weeks."

"A favor, huh? And a royal one, no less. Confidential?"

"Absolutely." Louise was one of the only people loyal to Henrietta the person, instead of Henrietta the princess.

"Dangerous?"

"There's an element of that, yes."

"And you're asking _Louise_ for this favor?"

"Um..." Growing up, Louise had always had trouble with magic, but Henrietta was sure that her friend had grown out of that. After all, she had helped capture an infamous thief, so she must have mastered a few spells, at least. "I'm also sending Guiche de Gramont."

Osmond blinked. "Oh. Well, he's...sometimes competent. When he focuses. I'm told."

She frowned. "Headmaster, how is Louise doing? Academically, I mean."

"Well, she is currently in her second year, and has managed to cast a total of two spells."

"Oh. Oh, Founder, I've made a terrible mistake."

"Maybe," Osmond said. "Maybe not."

Henrietta looked up. "What spells has she cast?"

He smiled. "Summon Familiar, and Contract Familiar."

"That's it?" While summoning a familiar acted as a rite of passage, was more symbolic than practical. Henrietta still rode her unicorn familiar every now and then, but many mages didn't even do that. And yet, Osmond seemed far too satisfied. "What did she summon?"

"A human."

Her eyes widened. Had that ever been done before? "A mage?"

"A commoner."

Henrietta frowned. Osmond was acting like one of her tutors, one of the more irritating ones that were more interested in showing off their knowledge than sharing it. "What are you not telling me?"

"Something that, for Louise's own safety, must never be mentioned outside this room."

She felt a sudden chill wash over her. _What have you been doing, Louise?_ "You're worried that her enemies will find out?"

"Enemies?" The old man laughed. "I wouldn't trust her _allies_ with what she might be."

Henrietta looked up into Osmond's violet eyes. Behind the mirth, he hid the dread of a man who knew too much and could do too little. "And what is she?"

WWW

San liked mornings, the brisk coolness of the dawn, and the dew on the grass that made the land seem fresh. After hunting for breakfast, she opened the stables and asked Alo if he wanted to go on a journey with her.

"Sure, why not?"

San stroked the white horse's back. " _You seem content with whatever happens to you, don't I?"_

"Well, why wouldn't I be? If I stay, I get rest, and if I go, I get exercise, and I get fed either way. Why bother worrying about it? Why bother thinking about it?"

" _Why bother thinking about anything?"_ San asked rhetorically.

"Exactly."

" _I don't think my mind works that way. I couldn't stop thinking just by choosing not to."_

"That's because you're...well, you're not human, but you act like one, sometimes."

San frowned. She wanted to get angry, but Alo meant no offense. She had the body of a human, so anyone who didn't know her would mistake her for one.

" _Hey, Alo," she said. "What do you know about unicorns?"_

"Unicorns? They're...what do you want to know?" He sounded uncomfortable.

" _I spoke with some yesterday. I never told them my mother was a wolf, but they called me Wolf Daughter."_ And Windalfr, whatever that meant.

"Unicorns are different," Alo said. "The world treats them differently than it does other creatures. They're like birds."

" _Birds?"_

"Yeah, birds. I can jump, but when I try to fly, I just come back down. Birds can go up and stay up."

" _So, you're saying that unicorns can...fly?"_

"No, I'm saying that they can do things they shouldn't. They can use their blood or horns to heal. I don't know how it works, I just know that it does, and it shouldn't."

" _Do they also know things they shouldn't?"_

"Probably. I've heard something about unicorns and the pure in heart, so they'd have to know what your heart it like."

San put her hand to her chest and listened to her pulse. _There is a light in you, Daughter of Wolves,_ the unicorns had said. _You will not save yourself, nor can you._ The whole conversation had burned with urgency. If only that human hadn't interrupted them! Whenever she was on the verge of something important, a human always came along to screw everything up!

"Good morning, San," Louise said from behind her. "I see you're already packed."

San didn't have anything to pack, but humans were like squirrels with their obsession of collecting and storing acorns...or whatever the human equivalent of acorns was.

She narrowed her eyes at a blonde boy who smelled strongly of mint and pine needles, but far too strongly to be natural. "Who's he?"

"Oh, him," Louise said. "That's Guiche. The Princess said that he has to come with us, so we're stuck with him."

"Is that really how you're going to introduce me?" he said.

"Oh, my apologies, Guiche, let me try again." Louise cleared her throat. "San, this is Guiche de Gramont, a compulsive liar and flamboyant perve. Guiche, this is my familiar, San. She hates humans with a burning passion. I'm sure you'll get along fine."

She climbed up on her horse and sent it galloping. San followed her and Guiche struggled to catch up. "You said we were going somewhere called Albion," San said. "You never said why."

"It's a long story involving revolutions, wars, young love, and blackmail," Louise said, "but the short answer is to prevent a war."

San nodded. Ashitaka would have approved of that sort of thing. "And that one? Guiche?"

"He was eavesdropping when the princess gave me the secret mission, and if we didn't let him tag along, he'd probably start blabbing."

"Hardly," Guiche said from behind. "Her Majesty recognized my charming and debonair nature, and found me worthy of her trust in such a perilous task." Louise rolled her eyes, but Guiche didn't notice. "By the way, as you have decided to bring your familiar along, would you mind if I did the same with mine? The other familiars are jealous of his charm and good looks, so he has trouble making friends, and I hate leaving him alone."

"Your familiar?" Louise asked. "Aren't you the one who summoned that ugly mole?"

"No," he said indignantly. "I'm the one who summoned the charming, beautiful mole."

"Well, sorry, but we're in a hurry, and we don't have time to wait for your charming, beautiful mole to crawl along beside us."

Guiche shook his head. "Louise, Louise, Louise, my familiar is a subterranean marvel, and can easily dig as fast as a horse can trot. Why, he's been keeping up with use since we left the Academy."

"What?"

"I'll show you." Guiche dismounted and stomped on the ground twice. Verdandi, the mole that San sometimes talked to, stuck his head out of the ground, and Guiche embraced him. "See? Oh, Verdandi, you magnificent creature!"

Verdandi blinked his eyes in the sunlight. "Yep, I'm magnifi– _shiny_!" He broke free of Guiche and scurried over to Louise, latching onto her ankle.

Louise's horse, a speckled gray mare that San didn't know, looked down at the mole and panicked. "Ah! What is that thing? Get it off me, get it off me!" She reared on her hind legs.

Louise fell off the horse and landed flat on her back, and Verdandi crawled on top of her. "Guiche, get your dirty mole off me this instant!"

Guiche frowned. "I don't know. Verdandi usually has a good reason for whatever he does. I'm going to let this play out."

" _Verdandi,"_ San said. " _Get off the human. She's my friend."_

"But she has a shiny!" Verdandi protested. Louise must have had a piece of jewelry with her. "She has a shiny, and I want it!"

" _Don't make me hurt you."_ San got off of Alo's back. " _I'll give you until the count of three before I–"_

"Air Hammer!"

A gust of wind smashed into Verdandi, knocking him off of Louise and sending him rolling. A creature that seemed like the cross between a bird and a cat but larger than a horse flew down, and a man dismounted from its back.

"I'm off already, I'm off!" Verdandi scrambled to his feet and dug a hole to hide in.

Guiche drew a fake rose and pointed it at the man. "How dare you attack my familiar!"

"My apologies," the man said, helping Louise to her feet. It was a voice San recognized. And a face she recognized. "But I–"

"You!" San snarled, pointing a finger at him.

He frowned. "I'm sorry, have we...oh."

" _You._ "

"Ah."

WWW

a/n Verdandi is technically a girl's name, but the light novel refers to the mole as an it, and the anime as a he. I've been wondering how Wardes managed to find out that Louise was a void mage and get himself sent on the mission to Albion, so I decided to answer that question in this chapter. Magic! Brilliant, I know.

These days, unicorns are often depicted as magic horses with horns, but some of the original myths had them as pretty freaky weird, and don't get me started on the My Little Pony version. (Telekinesis? What myth had telekinetic unicorns?) In Familiar of Zero, they're seldom seen and never do anything that a horse couldn't, so I'll just go with whatever I think fits best. On a side note, Skuld and Urd are the names of Norse Valkyries in charge of the past and the future. The Valkyrie in charge of the present is called Verdandi. Yes, Verdandi. And that's how I know it's a girl's name.

I've been trying to figure out what Windalfr means, and I haven't been able to find anything. Gandalfr translates to "wand elf," and in the light novel meant magic user (Saito was pretty confused when he found out, too.) I'm guessing that either Windalfr means something similar, or the writers made up a word that sounded suitably Norse.

For future reference, I'm assuming that the griffon is just Wardes's mount, not his familiar. I don't know if it was ever described as such, but the griffon never displayed any familiar abilities, and Wardes didn't seem to mind upgrading to a dragon afterwards.

Thank you, everyone who has left a review. You are awesome, every one of you.


	5. Chapter 5

Windalfr, Right Hand of Vengeance

Chapter Five

The best part of the weekend was the mornings. That was when Tabitha could put on her glasses, reach for a book, and read with the sun warming her back. She often skipped breakfast on such days so she wouldn't have to get dressed until noon. The time she could spend just lying in bed with a good book to fall into was so...

Her door slammed open and Kirche burst into her room. "Tabitha! I need your dragon! I just fell in love!"

...peaceful. And it was gone. She glanced up at her friend.

"So, I saw this guy, right? Well, I saw him yesterday, but I never got the chance to talk to him with all the whatnot, and he seemed to be working, right? Royal guard and all that. But this morning, I saw him _again,_ so I was thinking, it has to be fate, you know?" Tabitha didn't know how much longer Kirche wanted to monologue, so she went back to her book. "Well, he left before I could catch him, but I found out that he was asking about–get this–Louise de la Valliere! It turns out that she just left this morning, don't know where, somewhere to the north, so my mystery man must have gone after her, and I figured, no way am I going to lose to Louise the Zero in something like–hey, are you listening, or just reading?"

Well, she managed to get through another page. Tabitha put her book down and looked at Kirche innocently. Kirche was the best friend she ever had, but she wished Kirche could reign herself in a bit more. Or at all. But if there was one thing that provoked Kirche to irrationality, it was men, and if there were two things, it was men and Louise, and if there was a man interested in Louise, then Kirche would never rest.

And, by extension, neither would she.

Tabitha stood up, grabbed her staff, whistled for her familiar, and stepped out the window.

WWW

Louise always assumed that if she ever met Viscount Wardes again, it would be after he had annulled their engagement and had gotten married to someone taller, prettier, and more skilled than she was. Other than that, she thought that they would have met at their wedding, with him passively accepting the arrangement if only for the political advantages.

Meeting him out of the blue, assigned by the princess herself to protect her, still in love with her–in _love_ with her...it was so impossible it felt like something out of a dream.

Or at least, it would have been, if he hadn't had some sort of history with her familiar.

"So, you two know each other?" Louise asked. Her familiar was looking at Wardes as though he had insulted her ancestors and murdered her family, and he was looking at her as if she had caught him crossdressing.

"We've met," Wardes said. "Briefly. She seemed inordinately curious in the her Majesty's unicorns which I was guarding, and I fear I was more brusque than I should have been."

That...that described Louise's first meeting with San pretty well, too, with Louise taking for granted San's understanding of societal propriety, and San climbing out the window and running away. But they had gotten over that, so Louise's familiar and fiancé could get over their unfortunate first impression, too. After all, San wasn't the type to hold a grudge, right? Right?

"Well, whatever happened," Louise said, "it's all in the past. Both of you are now starting over and meeting each other for the first time." She tried to sound unbiased, but she meant her words more for San. "Wardes, this is San, my familiar. San, this is Wardes, my fiancé."

"Hello, San," Wardes said. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope that we can become friends." He extended his hand to her like a perfect gentleman. Louise half expected her familiar to sniff it like she had when Colbert offered the same courtesy.

But she didn't. San only stared at Wardes, her eyes boring a hole in his jugular vein.

 _Oh, Founder,_ Louise thought. _This is going to be a rough trip._

WWW

San would have found the hypnotic rhythm of Alo's hooves soothing under different circumstances. The road was too open to sneak up on anything, but that meant that it was also too open for anything to sneak up on them. She didn't know Guiche that well, but if he was half as good as Verdandi claimed he was (and didn't talk), then she was sure she'd be able to tolerate him. And Louise...San was starting to like that human. Around her...

San didn't feel that old, visceral hatred surging up from the pit of her stomach that she felt around other humans.

But then there was Wardes. She glared at him as he rode in the front of the group on his bird-cat. His cruel indifference for their first encounter and his deliberate kindness for this their second with a thick background of arrogance made him feel so very _human._

"You can't judge people by their first impression," Louise said, riding beside her. The white mare she had started out on had grown tired, so she had switched to a black stallion that Alo described as irksome. "You didn't like me when we first met, and I didn't much care for you either, but everyone deserves a second chance, and I'm sure that–"

"Louise," San said. "Is Wardes part of this group?"

She blinked. "Of course he is."

"Then, as long as he is part of the group, I will endure him." Somehow. "What's a fiancé?"

Louise looked up. "Pardon?"

"You referred to him as your fiancé. What does that mean?"

"Oh, um, it means that we are engaged."

Another meaningless word. San waited for her to finish.

"To be...married."

Married. San had heard that term before. It was another human thing, but it meant basically...

"He's your mate?"

Louise's face turned pink and she glanced ahead to see if Wardes was watching them. "It's more complicated than that, but in the future, eventually, we may or may not...yes?"

Wardes continued to sit with his head facing forward, but San could tell he was listening. "Why _him_?"

Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "I _didn't_ pick him! My family did!"

"Is he your family's mate or yours?"

"That's not a term people use," she hissed, growing irritated. "But in a way, both."

San tried to make sense of her words, but she failed. How could families mate? Wolves mated to start their own families, and San knew that when her brothers were old enough, they would go off on their own to start the cycle anew, but humans...she'd never understand them.

" _Did that make any sense to you?"_ San asked Alo.

"Sorry, what?" the horse said. "I wasn't really paying attention."

San smiled weakly and shook her head.

"So, we're good, right?" Louise said, misinterpreting Sans gesture. "I mean..." She stopped as a shadow passed over them.

San looked up and saw a dragon, its blue wings blending into the sky. Louise's horse whinnied, but Alo stayed calm. Wardes drew his sword and his mount spread its wings.

"Put it back, Wardes," San snapped. "She's a friend." She recognized those wings.

Sylphid slowed her flight and landed on the road ahead of them. Sylphid's human, Tabitha, sat on her back, and the redhead Kirche dismounted.

"Louise!" Kirche said cheerfully. "What a surprise meeting you here! And you brought your familiar too. Hey San!" She turned to Wardes. "And _who_ are you, handsome? My name's Kirche, by the way, but you can call me anything you want. This is a _pleasure._ "

WWW

Louise froze in horror as Kirche appeared out of nowhere to try to ruin her life. As if things weren't complicated enough trying to resolve whatever dispute her familiar had with Wardes, now _Kirche_ had to arrive. This always happened to her! Whenever she was on the verge of some sort of resolution, _Kirche_ happened!

"My name is Wardes," he said. He tugged on his reins, pulling his griffon away from her. "And I would appreciate it if you would cease stroking my leg. I'm already in a relationship."

"Really?" she said, undaunted. "With who?"

"I'm engaged to Louise Françoise de la Valliere," he said coldly. "I believe you already know each other."

"Louise, huh?" Kirche glanced at her with a smirk. "You can do better than her."

 _I will murder you in your sleep!_

"I doubt that," Wardes said. "I doubt that very much."

Louise blinked. She was so surprised, she almost missed the expression on Kirche's face when she was, possibly for the first time ever, rejected by a man she liked. _Almost._ She would cherish Kirche's shocked bewilderment for the rest of her life.

"Kirche," Louise said. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know, just flying around, thought I'd drop by and say hi." _Liar._ "What are you doing here?"

"That's a secret."

"A secret? As in, you haven't decided yet, or it's a secret mission kind of secret?"

"The latter," Guiche said smugly. "Why, the fate of the entire kingdom of Tristain could depend on the outcome of our royal mission."

"Guiche!"

"What?" he said. "The secrecy of the mission wasn't the secret part of the mission. It's not like I mentioned the princess's letter we need to retrieve from Prince Wales."

" _Guiche!_ " _I'll murder you both!_

"Oh, I am _so_ sorry." He actually sounded sincere. "I cannot shut up when I'm talking to women."

"You can't shut up when you're talking at all!" Louise shrieked–in a wholly dignified and ladylike manner. "That's what talking means!"

"She has a point," Kirche said.

"Don't agree with me!" Louise said, pointing at her. "Don't _ever_ agree with me!"

"Before you ask," Kirche said, turning to Wardes, "yes, she always this demanding and unreasonable."

"And before _you_ ask," Louise said, "you are _not_ coming with us." This was _her_ mission that Princess Henrietta entrusted to _her_ , and by the Founder, there was no way her family's ancient enemy take that from her.

"Well, I wasn't planning on joining you," Kirche said. "But I _have_ always wanted to meet Prince Wales." She turned back to her friend. "Hey, Tabitha! Do you want to go to Albion with me?"

Tabitha sat on her dragon, reading her book, wearing, for her own incomprehensible reasons, a nightdress and a nightcap. "Don't care."

"Alright, it's settled then."

"No! No, no, no, no, no!"

"Oh, come on, Louise," Kirche said. "I already know too much for you to turn me away." She winked at Guiche. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"What can I say?" he said. "Guiche de Gramont always leaves women satisfied. Whether I want to or not."

 _I am rapidly losing control of the situation._ She looked at Wardes helplessly.

He didn't look any happier than she did, but he looked ahead and motioned his griffon forward. "Let's get going. We've wasted enough time here as it is."

"You're just going to let them come with us?" Louise protested.

"We can't exactly stop them," he said, his voice cold and logical. "But who knows? They might come in handy somehow."

WWW

They arrived at La Rochelle late in the evening, exhausted from their journey. Or at least Louise was. Dragons were more comfortable to sit on than horses, and it seemed like Wardes and San were born on the saddle. Or at least Wardes was. San still rode bareback, so that left Louise and Guiche, and Guiche's feelings didn't matter.

They stopped at an inn called The Goddess Temple and Wardes paid for the rooms. Everything Louise had needed at the Academy had already been paid for, so she didn't have much experience spending money, and she realized that she had underestimated their traveling expenses.

That was probably why Princess Henrietta sent him along. Otherwise, Louise might have had to have asked Kirche for money, which could very well have killed her.

They sat around a table in the inn's common room. The rest of the patrons were either nobility or wealthy commoners, and Kirche leered at some of them appraisingly. If that kept her away from Louise's betrothed, then all the better. Guiche flirted unsuccessfully with the waitresses, and Tabitha propped open her book at the first opportunity, still in her pajamas. San stood in the corner fidgeting, glaring at anyone who thought that a girl with face paint and a wolfskin cloak looked out of place.

"I have the keys," Wardes said, sitting down next to her. "The girls are in room two-thirteen and Guiche is alone in one-sixtynine."

Guiche took his key. "Well, we'll see how long that lasts."

"And Louise, you and I will be in room one-oh-eight."

Louise sucked in a breath and felt her face heat up. "B-but Wardes, we're not married yet."

"We're engaged," he said indifferently. "Besides, I have something important to discuss with you."

Oh. Well, as long as it was strictly business, it was okay then. There wasn't anything at all inappropriate with a man and a woman sharing a room together to...discuss important matters.

Kirche picked up her room key and leaned towards Wardes. "If you ever get tired of the Valliere playing hard to get, come knock on my door. Tabitha is so quiet, you won't even know she's there."

Wardes ignored her and led her to her– _their_ –room.

 _Oh, Founder, what am I doing?_

WWW

 _Oh, Founder, what am I doing?_ Wardes thought as he poured two cups of wine. _I'm trying to seduce a child,_ he replied to himself. _That's what I'm doing._

He could say what he liked about the fate of the world and the greater good, but that didn't change the reality of the present, and that reality would make him the laughing stock of the Reconquista in a way he'd never be able to live down.

Not that he'd ever cared what others thought about him, but still, he'd have felt more comfortable trying to kill the kid than wooing her.

He gave a cup to Louise and smiled as warmly as he could. "To a safe journey."

"Yeah," she said, but she held the cup with both hands between trembling knees. "Safe journey."

Wardes downed his own cup, pretending not to notice her discomfort. He remembered her being more gullible when she was six. Hopefully, she was still as insecure.

He put his hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. "Don't worry, my Louise. I will always be there for you."

That was a lie, and an obvious one. He hadn't bothered to keep in touch in the ten years since they were engaged, and when his father died, their betrothal was one of the many obligations he felt relieved to be free of, but it was the sort of lie that people wanted to believe.

"And," he added, "your familiar will be there for you too."

"My familiar?" she said, looking up. "But she hates you."

"Yes," he admitted. "And I take full responsibility for that, but she's loyal to you." Magnanimity would take him further than petty grudges would.

"But she's just a commoner. She can barely handle polite conversation."

"Perhaps. But she's very good with animals, isn't she?"

Louise looked up in surprise. _So Osmond was right._

"On the way here," he continued, "you changed horses, what, three times? Four?" His griffon was strong enough to not even notice his weight, especially if it was walking instead of flying, but horses tired.

"Something like that," Louise said.

"And how many times did your familiar, San, change her horse?" Wardes asked. "I wasn't watching too closely, but whenever I looked back, she was on the same white horse."

"Then...she must have picked a pretty strong horse."

"Her mount looked pretty scrawny to me. And she controlled it perfectly without reins, too. Don't you think that's odd?"

"Well, maybe a little. What's your point?"

"My point, my Louise, is I've recognized the runes on her right hand. Runes have always been something of a hobby of mine, and I recognized hers as soon as I saw them. If I'm not mistaken, they spell _Windalfr_."

"Windalfr?" She put her full wine cup on the table and stood up. "I've heard that word before. Wasn't that the name of one of Founder Brimir's familiars? The one with the flute?"

"I think the flute was meant to be symbolic, but yes. According to the legends, Windalfr could control any animal she met."

Wardes could see the wheels turning inside her mind. She knew he was right, and she had pieces to the puzzle that he didn't. "What does it mean?"

"That you've summoned a familiar who shares the marks of one of the Founder's own four?" Wardes asked. "It means that you could very well become the most powerful mage that the world has seen in millennia."

She stared at him, evidently having arrived at a different conclusion. "What? But that's impossible."

"Why? If a void mage can happen once, it can happen again."

She began to pace. "Well, yes, but me? Brimir was a legend, and I haven't been able to cast three spells right."

"Irrelevant. You're still coming into your power. You'll be a legend too, when you are done."

Louise looked away and seemed to mouth the words, "Louise the Legend," as a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

It seemed as a good a time as any to make his move, so he did. "Marry me when this mission is over, Louise."

He calculated how much time he had before the Reconquista secured Albion and was ready to make its move on Tristain. In an optimal scenario, the Reconquista would invade while the void mage was safely honeymooning in Romalia, so they needed to wed quickly.

Louise jumped in surprise and stumbled back into her chair. "What?" But...but...I'm not ready for that! I still need to finish school, and...and..."

"The Tristain Academy teaches only four of the five elements, and there's nothing you can learn from them."

"But I'm too young!"

"You're sixteen. That's old enough to make decisions on your own." But probably not wise enough. "I don't want to spend my whole life as just a knight, Louise. I want to change the course of Halkeginia." That was the first time all night he had heard emotion in his voice. Those words were also the truest. "And I want you by my side, my Louise, because I know that, regardless of what you think, you _will_ change Halkeginia."

He had never been good at flattery. It always came out as false or frightening, and as his words settled, Louise looked truly frightened.

"Well, just think about it," he said as lightly as he could. "We have a long trip ahead of us."

WWW

Worrying about Princess Henrietta's mission as well as Wardes's claim that she was a void mage with a legendary familiar did not help her sleep. The next morning, she woke up even more tired than she had been when she had gone to bed.

Wardes had already left. Either he was a morning person, or he had something to do. What, Louise couldn't say; none of the ships would leave for Albion until tomorrow, so they all had the day off.

She rolled out of bed and put her shoes on, having slept in her clothes. That was one of the many things that had kept her from falling asleep. So far, she had not done a good job of planning ahead for this mission. Tabitha's idea of traveling in her pajamas suddenly didn't seem so foolish.

Louise went up the stairs to the second floor of the inn where her familiar and her classmates were staying and knocked on the door.

Kirche greeted her with a grin. "Hey, Louise. You look like you've had a fun night."

Louise looked down and smoothed the wrinkles out of her shirt, glaring at Kirche's clothes, which looked as fresh as they had the day before. "Is my familiar here?"

"Nope."

"Do you know where she is?"

Kirche cocked her head innocently. "What, don't you?"

"I'm not in the mood for games, Kirche, just answer the question."

"Sure, if you answer one of mine."

Louise really should have stayed in bed. Morning people were much easier to deal with in the afternoon. "You just can't make this easy on me, can you?"

"What, it's a question for a question. That's fair." Kirche grinned. "So give me the double D."

"The what? I don't know what that is, but I'm going to assume that's obscene."

"The dirty details," Kirche explained. "How was he last night?"

"How was who?"

Kirche gave her a long suffering look.

"Oh, Wardes. There weren't any dirty details. We talked business, we went to sleep in separate beds, and nothing interesting happened at all."

Kirche looked aghast at her. "What is wrong with you?"

"That's a second question. You only get one."

"Okay, fine. No, Louise, I do not know where your familiar is."

"What? But she was with you!"

"She was, but as soon as she came in here, she sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and climbed out the window."

"What? But..." That actually sounded a lot like her. "Did she say where she was going? When she'd be back?"

"Nope. You might not have noticed, but your familiar is not the most talkative girl I've ever met. In fact, she might very well be the second least." Kirche stepped out of the doorway and invited her in. "As you may notice, only two of the three beds have been slept in."

The room was almost as nice as the one Louise had stayed in, though a bit bigger. One of the beds was still perfectly made, one had its blankets strewn across the floor, and one was almost still made, except that it had Tabitha still in it reading a book.

And no sign of San. Not that there was anything to worry about. Even at the Academy, San had stayed outdoors whenever she could and never cared for human food. She had probably gone just outside the city limits or something. She had almost certainly not run away. Again.

"Magic eye," Tabitha said without looking up.

"What?"

"Tabitha's suggesting that you use the magic eye," Kirche explained. "You know, the one that lets you see what your familiar is doing? That might give you some clue about where she is. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see how tall, dark, and silver is doing."

"Oh no! Don't you dare! He's mine!"

"Not yet, he's not," Kirche laughed. "Why don't you focus on what is yours, and leave what isn't to everyone else?"

She walked out the door, knowing that Louise couldn't do anything to stop her. Or could she? Louise raced out ahead of her and ran down the stairs and banged on Guiche's door.

"What is it, Louise?" he asked, looking like he had just stumbled out of bed. "I was up late with a beautiful–"

"I'm not interested in Rosie Palms, Guiche! I have a mission for you."

"A mission?" He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "But I thought we weren't leaving until tomorrow."

"And until then, I need you to keep Kirche and Wardes away from each other. Until I get back, I need you to be with at least one of them at all times."

He blinked. "Is there something I need to be aware of?"

"No, you don't have to be aware of anything. You just need to keep the sex demon off my fiancé."

"Distracting a sex demon," Guiche mused. "I don't know. I am in the middle of a very satisfying relationship with Montmorency right now."

"Montmorency?" Louise repeated. "You mean the girl who publicly dumped you at the Ball of Frigg with the rest of your girlfriends?" It was the highlight of an otherwise dull evening.

He cleared his throat. "Well, we're hitting a rough spot, admittedly, but still. Anyway, don't you trust Viscount Wardes? He _is_ your fiancé."

"I _don't_ trust Kirche, and I'd rather not trust Wardes any more than I have to." Wardes had never shown himself to be anything less than honorable, but Kirche had _methods_. Louise didn't know what they were, but she knew that Kirche had them, and that they were devious. "I need to work on something, and if anything happens between the two of them while I'm gone, I _will_ hold you responsible, and I will personally feed your manhood to a pack of wolves! I _have_ those connections!"

Guiche yelped and face paled. Well, it was his blabbering fault Kirche was with them in the first place, he could deal with the consequences.

"I-I say, I seem to have, um, underestimated the dangers of traveling with you to a war torn kingdom wrought with civil war. But nonetheless, _this_ rose does not wilt in the sight of peril."

Louise left him to his flower metaphors to find her familiar. _Now, if I were raised by wolves and hated humans, where would I be?_

WWW

San was admiring a fountain in the middle of the human city when a crow landed on her shoulder. She ignored him for a moment, trying to figure out how the humans had convinced the water to shoot up perpetually in a gentle, artificial geyser, when he spoke.

"You smell like God."

San didn't respond for a moment. She knew no crow god, by neither name nor scent. But could crows smell at all? She had never asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's your scent," he said, looking at her with one eye the color of a midnight lake. "You decide what it means."

That made even less sense. Smells were objective; they meant the past, where she had been and what she done. "What do you want?"

"I want to be there when you kill."

Without warning he fell off her shoulder and flew past one of the few humans San recognized.

"There you are," Louise said. "I was worried that I'd have to leave town and wander around the forest for a few hours." She sat down on a short, wide stone sculpture that must have been designed for that purpose. "We need to talk."

Humans always wanted to talk, even when they had nothing to say. "So talk."

"Have a seat," she said, motioning to the other side of the stone sculpture. She took her right hand and looked at the markings on it, as though she had never noticed them before.

And then she began to talk.

 _We need to talk_ meant that Louise needed to talk, apparently. So San sat next to her and listened.

Louise told her about her childhood, human problems that San never had. She had inherited a reputation to live up to, but not the capacity to excel. Both of her elder siblings were everything her parents wanted, but Louise was, in her parents eyes, and gradually in her own eyes, worthless.

That level of betrayal, of _humanity,_ was beyond anything San could comprehend. Like Louise, San had grown up as the slowest and weakest of her family. Her skin was naked and hairless, her teeth as dull as an herbivore's, and she was so slow she needed to be carried. She was a burden.

But her brothers and her mother never saw her that way. She was born with the form of their enemy, but they accepted her as one of them, and she _was_ one of them, and no matter how slow, weak, and ugly someone is, you _never_ abandon family.

Assuming, of course, that you live among wolves.

Louise moved on with her story and told her about Wardes, about how when she felt crushed by the expectations that she would _always_ fail to reach, he would find her and speak kind words to her. Humans always put too much value on words, but kind words were kindnesses, too.

"And one day," Louise continued, "I'm going to get married to him. It might be in a few years when I'm done with school, it might be when we get back from Albion, but one way or another, he's going to become part of my life, and I...I don't want you running off into the woods again just because you don't like him."

Of course she wouldn't. To abandon was human, and San was wolf. But that wasn't what Louise was asking. If San continued on her path, hating Wardes whenever they shared each other's presence, then even if she didn't scare him off, Louise would be caught in the middle of their...their cycle of hatred, and she didn't deserve that.

"And you know what else?" Louise said. "Last night when we were alone, Wardes could have badmouthed you and tried to get me to take his side in things, but it seemed like he really liked you, and he kept on telling me how great a familiar he thought you were. He said that you were the legendary Windalfr, which may have been an exaggeration, but–"

"Wait, what did he call me?"

"Windalfr," Louise said again. "You know, from Brimir's legend."

San didn't know what Brimir was, but she had heard the word, "Windalfr," once before. _You will destroy each other,_ the unicorns had said. _Or save each other. Choose Wolf Daughter. Choose,_ Windalfr _._

"Yeah, I know," Louise said, misinterpreting San's expression. "If I had found out that Kirche had been going around telling people that I was the greatest mage she had ever met, I'd, well...anyway, we won't be able to take a ship to Albion until tomorrow, so I'd appreciate if you spoke to Wardes to reconcile whatever it is that needs reconciliation."

San nodded slowly. She still had no idea what the word, "Windalfr," meant, but she guessed that Wardes hadn't heard the term from a unicorn.

"You're right," she said. "I should talk to him."

"Fantastic," Louise said, standing up. "You just wait here, and I'll send him over."

WWW

Wardes flew to where Louise said that San was on the back of his griffon. His wonder at the majesty of flight had long since given way to acceptance of the practicality of it, and griffons were practical beasts. They weren't as strong as dragons, but they were easier to tame, quicker to breed, and ate far less.

And today, his griffon would prove a legend.

He landed in the open square where he found San. Some children screamed and ran away and others approached the creature curiously, but the adults continued on their way and stayed out of his.

"San!" he said, planting a smile on his face. "Good morning to you!"

"Why did you call me Windalfr?"

Not one for courtesy, but he knew that from the day before. What surprised him more was how she showed none of the subservience commoners often displayed to their superiors, nor the condescension nobles gave their inferiors. In fact, the only emotion he sensed from her was the animosity of an enemy.

"Oh, that," he said. "The runes on your hand match those of Brimir's legendary familiar." He had hoped for some sort of reaction, but San only stared at him as though he were speaking a foreign language.

"What does that mean?"

"You're Windalfr. The only Windalfr that the world has seen in thousands of years. You decide what it means."

She nodded, and her animosity lessened.

"I know we started out on the wrong foot," he said, pressing his advantage. "But I'd like to make peace with you before we continue."

San cocked her head at that. "Are you a peacemaker, then?"

"I..." Was this a trick? She seemed to bury a deeper meaning in her words. "When I have to be." She nodded again. "Anyway, I have brought a peace offering." He stroked the long, white feathers of his griffon's neck. "You ride horses well, Windalfr, but crawling beasts bore me." He smiled at her. "How would you like to ride something with wings?"

WWW

San looked into the proud, golden eyes of the griffon. Nothing saw you quite like a bird of prey, nothing had that _intensity_ , and the front half of the griffon was a giant eagle. His eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking, and easily three inches wide, wide enough for San to see her black reflection in his pupils.

" _My name is San, daughter of Moro,"_ she said. The griffon did not respond. " _What should I call you?"_

"My name is my own," he said. "Most humans call me griffon."

" _I am_ not _human. I am wolf."_

"Could have fooled me."

She forced herself to let his words slide. She knew what she was, and that was enough. " _The human, Wardes, offered me his permission to ride you."_ She was careful not to use the term, "master." Humans liked owning things, but only few animals were content to be owned. " _What say you?"_

"What say _I_?" the griffon snapped. "I have no say, so I say nothing."

" _Yes you do, griffon. I will not ride you without your permission."_

The griffon studied her, the only emotion she could read being the twitching of his tail, which San couldn't interpret.

"If I have a say," he said finally, "then I say no."

San stepped back, realizing that he hated her, hated her viscerally, instinctively, eternally, not for what she had done, but for what he thought she was. And once more, she saw her black reflection in the pupils of his unreadable eyes.

"No," she said aloud to Wardes. "I would _not_ like to ride the griffon."

WWW

If she had flown on the griffon, then Wardes would have known that she was Windalfr, and if she had fallen, then he would have known that she was not, but by watching her refuse to try, he had learned...nothing.

Still, until he managed to dig up a book of void spells, the familiar was the only way he had of proving that Louise was a void mage. He didn't want to risk the fate of the world on the words of two old men.

But that would come later. Now, he had to cut the fat from his merry band of fools.

"Are the mercenaries ready, Fouquet?"

"They're mostly sober, if that's what you mean. And if they all die, we don't have to pay them."

"Their expenses are negligible."

"Not if you count the money trail. That's the sort of thing that comes back to bite you."

Wardes rolled his eyes behind the mask that he always wore when he was with her. What did she know of living a double life? She had been playing the game for what, a few years? He had been what he had become for half his life.

"I need them to distract and delay, only. Their survival is irrelevant."

"Are you talking about them, or me? Because I think that my survival is pretty relevant."

"If you think that you have been treated unfairly, Fouquet..."

"Oh, no, no, of course not. You gave me a choice between freedom and death, and I chose the former. Of course, I was kind of hoping that _freedom_ didn't mean _indentured servitude_."

"Would you like a raise?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "I wouldn't complain, unless that's a euphemism for hanging me."

He knew her story. He had studied it before he freed her. He knew how her once noble family had been loyal to the Albion king's brother, and had fallen into dishonor when the archduke had been caught harboring an elf. Everything she had done since, becoming Fouquet, joining the Reconquista, she had done for vengeance.

"The targets include the girls who captured you before. Nothing that happens to them matters to the plan, as long as they are delayed."

A slow smile crept across her delicate, if severe features. "Oh, you silver-tongued devil."

"Give me a five minute head start. Then strike."

WWW

More and more, Louise was becoming convinced that Tabitha was the only person who was prepared for the mission. She had brought pajamas while Louise had to sleep in her clothes, she brought a book while Louise had nothing to do while she waited for the time to pass, and so she wasn't the least bit surprised when Tabitha walked down the stairs to the common room with her nightcap on her head and a book in her head and announced, "Enemies."

But that was mostly because Louise didn't understand what she meant. Fortunately, the earth shook and mercenaries burst into the room clarifying her statement.

She dove under a table and reached for her wand, but she didn't think that the innkeeper would appreciate it if she blew up his inn. The innkeeper...who was promptly murdered. _Well, screw that!_

"Fireball!" she shouted. No fire came out of her wand, but the ceiling collapsed on the mercenaries, and that bought them some time.

"Still," Kirche said. "That's not what I would call a fireball."

Guiche stumbled down the stairs. "Are we under attack, or is this the sort of thing that usually happens in these inns?"

"Attack," Tabitha said.

"Don't mind if I do!" Kirche said, seeing an armored mercenary climb out of the wreckage. "Fireball!" Her spell blasted the man away and lit the inn on fire. "Now, _that's_ what a fireball looks like."

"No," Louise said. "That's what arson looks like!"

"I don't hear the innkeeper complaining. Oh, right, because he's dead." The earth shook again. "Is there something going on outside that I should be aware of?"

"There's a demon outside," San said, coming out of nowhere.

"Oh, _that's_ encouraging."

"What do you mean?" Louise asked. "What kind of demon?"

"Earth demon," San said. "You called it a golem the first time. Fouquet's still alive." The last part came out as an accusation.

Wardes flew in through the window. "Louise, you're still alive. Good. I'm not too late."

"I'm alive too, handsome, if you're interested," Kirche said. "So we got some mercs and an escaped thief to play with. Do you have a preference, or do you swing both ways?"

"I fear our situation is more dire," he said. "Both armored commoners and earth golems require more magic to defeat than they really deserve, and are best used as willpower siphons."

"So they're the expendables to wear us out," Kirche said, switching from flirty to serious. "Dang it, are we going to have to hold back? I hate holding back!"

"There's more," Wardes continued. "If these forces are, as I believe, employed by the Reconquista, then our mission is no longer one of stealth, but of speed. Now that they are looking for us, the only hope for our mission is for Louise to reach Prince Wales as quickly as possible."

"Just Louise?" Kirche asked. "So what's the rest of us supposed to do? Are we just–"

"Bait," Tabitha supplied.

"I was going to say, 'expendable,' but that works too."

"Then it's agreed," he said. "Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche will stay behind to fight off the mercenaries and the thief. I'll take Louise and her familiar to the docks to take a ship to Albion."

"What?" San said, turning away from the pile of rubble that had blocked off the mercenaries. "I should stay here! I defeated Fouquet before, and I can do it again."

Louise wasn't sure about that. Before, San had horses, wolves, and whatever else was in that forest. In a town, she had, what? Birds?

"No," Wardes said. "You should stay with Louise. It is a familiar's duty to protect its master."

San's eyes widened in surprise, and as she turned to Louise, the surprise turned to betrayal and her body tensed. "Master?"

Louise had been careful to never use the M word around her, and she knew that she only had a moment to explain the situation, a _moment_ to tell her that their relationship was not one between master and servant, but between familiar and...something else.

And she'd have to do in front of Kirche and Wardes, and reveal to her rival and her fiancé that she couldn't control her own familiar, that she had _failed_ the most basic aspect of being a mage.

She hesitated, and the moment passed.

"Well, _master,_ " San said. "You can go do what you want." She reached up and lowered her ceramic mask over her face. "I'm going hunting."

"By yourself?" Louise almost forbade her, but she knew that San would not obey.

"Of course not," San said. "I'll ask Verdandi to help." She jumped out the same window Wardes had flown in through to go after Fouquet.

"I can't help but feel like there's a lot of drama going on here that I'm left out of," Kirche said. "So who's Verdandi?"

"He's my familiar," Guiche said. "He's more of a lover than a fighter, so I bet she really wanted my help, but was just too shy to admit it. I have that effect on women." He sighed. "Well, I guess I better go save the day." He levitated himself out the window.

Kirche flipped her hair back. "And I guess I'll have to amuse myself with faceless mooks. It's like the Ball of Frigg all over again." She winked at Louise. "Don't worry. Tabitha and I will tear through these guys and take the next ship to Albion, and we'll be interrupting your premarital honeymoon before you know it."

"Luck," Tabitha said.

That was the last Louise heard from either of them before Wardes picked her up and carried her away with the speed that only a square class wind mage could match. She realized that once more, she was alone with the man that she was going to get married to.

But inside, all she felt was alone.

WWW

a/n You know, the more I study Familiar of Zero, the more I realize how little sense it makes. Guiche gets caught eavesdropping (on a conversation warded against eavesdroppers), so the princess decides that he must be trustworthy enough to get sent on a secret mission. Kirche and Tabitha aren't even from Tristain and they decided to tag along for no reason at all, and they get invited too. Fortunately, the bad guys would never take advantage of the protagonists' baseless and incessant trust.

By the way, I might have mentioned this before, but I'm following the light novel more than the anime, mostly because, in my unbiased opinion, it was better.

Looking back, I realize that I've been kind of rough on Guiche. It's like the only reason he came on the mission was so that everyone else would have someone to pick on. All have to make it up to him somehow, like making him the main protagonist of a harem comedy now that Saito's gone.

Ha.

Ha ha.

No.


End file.
